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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



NORDA AND OTHER POEMS 



NORDA 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



ABRAHAM H. BATES 



WASHINGTON 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

MCMI 



THE LIBftARV OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copifca Received 

JUL. 11 t901 

Copyright entry 
COJ-V J. 






COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY] 



CONTENTS 



PAGK 
NORDA, 9 



the: oriole;, 
the; tumbi.e;r, 



TO MISS C . 

the; hammock, 



I.OVE, 



anacre;ontic, 



RURAIv MAIDS, ^^ 



48 



ge;raIvD and e;the;i., *» 

A be;autifuIv face, ^2 

homeward, 57 

THE DEATH OF MARCElvI/US, - - - - 59 

THE BENEFICENT OCEAN, 61 

MATTIE AND I, 63 



64 



THE UNWRITTEN, 67 

OF MANY BOOKS, 69 

WRANGIylNG PHII.OSOPHERS, 70 

THE POET'S DREAM, - 71 

TO I. A , 78 



TO F , '" 

TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ... - 79 

TWO VOICES— A REVERIE, 81 

HAPPINESS, - 86 

I,INES TO SOUTHERN FRIENDS, - - - - 100 

TO MAE, ^^2 

MY MOTHER'S HAND, 104 

A HYMN, 106 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

NON IGNARA MAI^I MISERIS SUCCURRER^ DISCO— 

Virgil, 107 

TO JUIylA, 110 

MEN LIKE STARS, Ill 

GREATNESS, 112 

TO MISS E A , 117 

THE REFORMER, 119 

THE SPECTRAI, GUARD, 124 

DERElylCT, 128 

GOD'S WORKS AND MAN'S WORKS COMPARED, - 129 

MY MUSE, 131 

COIvIvIER AND THE SAII^OR, 188 

MANIIvA AND SANTIAGO, 136 

GRUMBIvERS, 187 

GivOBE TROTTERS, 138 

A RECIPE, :- - - 139 

DISCONTENT, 141 

SHE TOLD ME HER I.OVE, 142 

CRITO, ... - 143 

VIA SACRA, 157 

TO MAE, 163 

MOUNT SAN ANTONIO,- 165 

A RETROSPECT, .--.... 168 

A STORY OF THE OAK, 175 

TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE, - - - - 180 

TWO BROOKS, 183 

THE CAVE OF MElvANCHOIvY, - - - - 186 

DOCTOR TiMEivY, 190 

ARION 200 



NORDA 

Mid Fashion's narrow throng I felt 

That fevered breath that is a blight ; 

Where Fashion bent the knee I knelt. 

Amid the glittering day of nighty 

Where Custom, that bland tyrant dwelt, 

I, still insatiate like the rest. 

Dreamed of the time I would be blessed. 

Fatigued I turned away from this 
Depressing god, still let him choose 
Who may the rounds of gaudy bliss. 
For moths that worship glare have use. 
Though some should die in flames they kiss; 
I longed for wider realms as those 
Whom gorgeous prison walls inclose. 

Far in the Occident remote 
I sought the rugged coast, and thence 
Great Nature's own domain I note; 
Her storms and scenic eloquence. 
Where mount and sea together smote ; 
Mid calm or storm, toward land or sea, 
'Twas varied sublimity. 

There storm with storm did seem to vie 
In aid of the aggressive seas, 



10 NORDA 

And here too many dangers lie 
A sailor's cautious gaze to please; 
But 'twould delight a Turner's eye, 
Whose pencil still in vain I ween 
Depicts the swiftly changeful scene. 

The soul is nobly stirred : comes here 

No curst and feverish unrest ; 

The strife of elements severe 

Inflame with holy rage the breast, 

For in their clash you see and hear 

The tug of mighty war as when 

The strongest clash with strongest men. 

And as the battle line sweeps high 

Along the hissing ranks of rock, 

Involving all the booming sky, 

'Tis like the Heaven jarring shock 

Of smiting cherubim that ply 

Their strokes of white hot thunder well 

And Heaven incensed casts out Hell. 

Or if exhausted forces should 
Proclaim a truce along the shore, 
Then comes a wholesome lassitude, 
As Heaven's armies knew of yore, 
When ceasing from their warfare good 
Beside life's stream they felt that rest, 
That never will corrode the breast. 



NORDA II 

II 

Two mountains smiling stand apart 

Atbow to let a river pass ; 

A stream that with majestic art 

Sweeps on through wood and mountain mass, 

Now slow, now bounding like a hart, 

Until the music of its score 

Is drowned in oceans' mighty roar. 

The light house keeper's dwelling near 
Is guarded round by cedars old, 
A tree of growth hard and severe. 
Eked from a flinty breast and cold. 
Yet living on for many a year, 
A tree of rugged features wild, 
Adversity's own wrinkled child. 

Still westward is a granite head 
Made bare by winter's torrents chill; 
It s wind bent trees at top all dead, 
Like vice's blasted fools who still. 
Though dead, remain unburied; 
A ghastly monitor that says. 
Young man, beware of selfishness. 

And further down, drenched by the spray 
That upward bounds full many feet, 
The rocks grotesque are worn and gray 
And form a tortuous pave where meet, 



12 NORDA 

When surfless and serene the day, 
The flippered lions of the sea 
That roar and play in horrid glee. 

Sometimes I heard a simple tale 

The light house keeper would recite 

Of death or rescue in the gale ; 

For each man lost there was a sprite 

That haunts the shore or mountain vale; 

To him these beings were as real 

As white winged gull or cloud or seal. 



Ill 



One day, so the brief story went. 
From north a passing brigantine 
Dropped anchor, and with bad intent 
Lets fall a boat the waves between 
Wherein the crafty captain sent 
Jerome, a seaman stout and brave 
Who 'gan to battle with the wave, 

And soon had drowned unless from land 

There had been thrown to him a line. 

And this he seized with iron hand 

And was per force dragged through the brine; 

No oar could such a surf withstand 

Jerome well knew and undismayed 

He seized upon the timely aid. 



NORDA 13 

Just as half dead he gained the shore 
His vessel spread her wings and flew 
Along her course just as before, 
But called to him aloud adieu 
(Heard faint above the ocean's roar;) 
As cranes bewail a wounded mate 
And then abandon him to fate. 

Revived right soon, from view he fled 
Amid a desert solitude; 
To Frisco far his footsteps led 
But paused he near a cabin rude 
Where horses on the mountain fed; 
He knew no more of horses wild 
Than does a Chinaman or a child. 

He saw and for a half tamed steed 

He paid the price. The horse was strong 

And of an ancient Spanish breed. 

Stout limbed, with shaggy mane and long, 

A horse that men will buy in need, 

Nor once dismount till death befall 

Or they have reached their d^ined goal. 

The lasso brings the beast at bay, 
Bridle and saddle on him placed, 
Jerome then mounts and is away 
Like dazzling meteor that is traced 
On skies lit by no other ray ; 
O'er narrow m-ountain paths he fl.ew 
Nor saw the dangers passed he through. 



14 NORDA 

His horse is bathed with glistening sweat 

With every vein in high relief, 

His neck and side now foaming wet ; 

His breathing loud and deep and brief 

Affrights the wood and plain and yet 

Is Frisco's noble bay before 

Him ninety weary leagues or more. 

As lash and spur are plied to speed, 
His course around a cape of rock, 
A hidden crevice tripped his steed ; 
Rider and horse with deadly shock 
Roll frightful down the crag, to feed 
Those vultures that with distant eye 
The dead and mangled can descry. 

There chanced to pass a mountaineer ; 
''What mean those vultures there," he cries, 
"No doubt some one has fallen here,'' 
Then down the shelving rock he flies 
And mightily, but not severe, 
Upon his shoulders lifts Jerome 
And bears him to his mountain home. 

The mountaineer possessed a child, 
She was the idol of his heart ; 
On many city beaux she smiled ; 
She knew the art of perfect art 
And too she loved to frolic wild 
Where mountains mingle with the skies, 
For she was beautiful and wise. 



NORDA 15 

Her name was Norda Lee. She spent 
Her summer hours far from the crowd 
Of ocean beach or town. She lent 
A charm to every sphere. The proud 
Patrician and the rustic bent 
Before the majesty of grace 
That glorified her form and face. 

Her frown was like a queen's command, 
Her voice, sweet as a dulcimer, 
More dextrous than magicians wand 
Could exorcise dun gloom and care, 
And bid the wings of hope expand 
To waft the soul with high delight 
As some fair vision of the night. 

TVas soon Jerome began to rise 
Responsive to her ministry. 
He knew her not. Though to his eyes 
A stranger, yet not strange was she ; 
Was she a friend in smart disguise? 
From warring doubts to find relief 
He told this story strange and brief : 

'Twas eight years since before me flashed 

A girl so like to thee, 
And still through time and distance wide 

Her wondrous form I see. 

And when my fancy paints her face 
From fairest ones I meet, 



I 6 NORDA 

And each is wanting much you seem 
The picture all complete. 

I was a sailor like the rest ; 

I watched for omens right, 
The course of birds, the elements. 

The voices of the night. 



And still that image followed me 

In crowds or solitude, 
It floated mid each adverse storm 

A bird of omen good. 

My life beneath the northern wain 
Was nearly whelmed with loss 

And many storms did I escape 
Beneath the southern cross. 

Meanwhile my captain hated me 
And planned my wreck and woe, 

And yet he seemed so like a friend 
His hate I did not know. 

He left me once upon 

The Fiji's savage coast. 
And once among the Philippines - 

He hoped that I was lost. 

By chance or fate or Providence, 
Each time I gained my bark, 



NORDA 17 

And then my men would feast and play 
And carol like a lark. 

From rage of men and elements 

I was so oft set free, 
I knew no fear ; I even dared 

The tiger of the sea. 

And oft when sporting in the wave 

My dagger drew his blood, 
'Twas fine to see his struggles lash 

The sea in to a flood. 

Meanwhile I learned the cause of all 

The captain's hate and blame, 
'Twas she, the distant one I loved : 

Her name's a sacred name. 

And I his secret kept, but saw 

His treachery and guile, 
I saw beneath his friendship, hate. 

And malice in his smile. 

As if to learn about a port 

He sent me singly down, 
Again I made escape e'en while 

He prayed for me to drown. 

While yet I struggled with the waves, 
Away his vessel flies, 



I 8 NORDA 

For now that I am gone, he thinks 
He'll win from me the prize. 

No doubt he'll say I'm dead, or have 
Deserted ship and crew; 
But all his lies will not avail 
For Norda's heart is true. 

She heard, nor once did turn her face, 
But with a woman's poise profound 
Concealed her ecstacy with grace; 
The dead was raised ; the lost was found 
Could Norda now the meaning trace 
Of all conflicting stories told 
By the deceiving captain bold. 

Meanwhile the captain bravely spread 
His utmost canvas to the winds ; 
His bending bark right onward sped 
Till Frisco's port he safely finds ; 
To Norda's side the captain fled 
Then suddenly paled with mad despair 
When told that Norda was not there. 

She's on the mountain coast, they say, 
Within a vale back from a port 
That lies one hundred leagues away; 
'Tis where her fancies oft resort 
And with the mountain fairies play; 
The captain cursed his own foul plot 
That left Jerome so near this spot, 



NORDA 19 

Who now restored, had learned whose skill 
And love had raised him from the dead ; 
Nor passed there many days until 
The two auspiciously were wed ; 
And many noble ones do still 
Recall that wedding grand and fair, 
And how the captain was not there. 

The lighthouse keeper paused awhile 
And gazed upon the wrinkled sea. 
Then turned, his face lit with a smile, 
And said : My name's Jerome, and she 
That doth my weary hours beguile 
Is Norda true. Our children dear 
Upon the beach are playing near. 

Two wintry months when storms arise 
We take the lighthouse keeper's place ; 
We love these scenes, these changing skies. 
But most to aid the sailor race^ 
And throw a light where danger lies ; 
I, rescued here from out the main, 
This light perpetually maintain. 

With eyes more kindling than before 
I gazed upon the sea and land; 
The children playing on the shore ; 
And then I gave the parting hand 
And said : I may not see you more ; 
Farewell. This is a sacred spot; 
A place that must not be forgot. 



20 THE ORIOLE 



THE ORIOLE 

In olden times there was a king 

Who had an only son, 
Who loved as fair and true a maid 

As ever valor won. 

His father angry grew and said : 

She's not of royal line ; 
No peasant girl shall ever wed 

A son and heir of mine. 

The prince then plead that she was fair 

As mortal eyes had seen; 
Though humble born, yet still 'twas true 

The maid was born a queen. 

The angry king more angry grew 

And in a castle high 
Did place his only son, till he 

Should change his mind or die. 

Within his grim and guarded cell 

The prince was glad to hear 
That she, the one he loved, was placed 

Within a prison near. 



THE ORIOI.E 21 

Right soon they learned to know of this, 

The place where each was hid, 
For love, though blind, her way will find 

Th ough gates and walls forbid. 

And they resolved to make escape 

With ropes of twisted strands, 
And at a signal down they went 

Held by their blistered hands. 

Alas ! the guards espied them both, 

Before they reached the ground. 
But when they raised a cry and searched 

They neither could be found. 

For they were changed to orioles. 

The first and happy pair ; 
And ever since these golden birds 

Do swing their nests in air. 



22 THK TUMBLER 



THE TUMBLER 

It was September fair; the year 
Was growing mild and mellow; 

The fields and highways dotted were 
With flowers blue and yellow. 

The twilight came on earlier 

While crickets and cicadas drone 

In melancholy monotone. 

Long clouds of dust for days had hovered 
O'er the lanes and all things covered, 
Until a passing shower 
Washed sky and tree and flower. 

An aggregation called a fair 

Was going on. Merchants, fakirs 
And agriculturists were there, 
And jockeys, too, in varied hue 
And juggling money takers 
Performing many a flimsy trick 
That with applause is greeted. 
For crowds, quite easily amused, 
Will chuckle while they're cheated. 

With trouble only in the choosing 
There were ten thousand things to see, 



THE TUMBI.ER 23 

Instructive most, and some amusing 
Or humored curiosity. 
Most pleased and pleasing of them all 
Was man, the smiling animal. 



II 



Below the stand where crowds were dense 

And anxiously awaiting, 
The programme of the race events 

There came a gymnast, stating 
That he craved a moment's attention. 
Or some such words, scarce worthy mention. 
A carpet on the ground he spread. 
Then threw his heels above his head 
And walked with ease complete 
Upon his hands; then tossed himself 
And lit upon his feet, 
And with a tumbler's supple skill 
The waiting interval did fill. 

A murmur rose among 
The now admiring throng. 
They said : "Fine fellow that 

To be in such a mean pursuit," 
But when he passed his hat 

To catch some pennies as the fruit 
Of acrobatic power. 
There fell around a shower 
Of coin — mostly of metal base, 



24 THE TUMBI.ER 

(For a free show one meanly pays.) 
Some thrown from high upon the stand, 
Missing his hat, fell in the sand; 
These picked he up from out the soil, 
And thanked the donors with a smile. 

There was a hand white and taper 
Threw a coin wrapped up in paper ; 
This omnious little white ball 
He pocketed, paper and all. 



Ill 

But now preparing for the race 
The well-groomed steeds with easy pace 
Move to and fro in grand review ; 
While jockeys green and red and blue 
Stand in their stirrups pronely 
On mane of steed as only 
Jockeys can; so that one would think 
Such curious forms, postures, faces. 
Were the long lost missing link 
Between man and the — the — races. 
Which now arousing expectation keen 
Drew all to view the thrilling scene. 

Forsaking all besides, they crowd 
The ampitheatre called grand; 
The sage, the minister, the priest, 
(On Sunday these rail at each other), 



THE TUMBLER 25 

Now jolly jostle on the stand 
As jovial as friend and brother. 

Some filled with an admiring wonder 

Evolve a homily no doubt, 

And find a fitting text about 

The horse, whose neck is clothed with thunder, 

One thing commending steed^p 

As worthier than creeds; 

The creeds oft drive men asunder; 

The horse, upon the other hand. 

Brings all upon one common stand. 

And some old sports ,who count their losses. 

And owners, too, of steeds there are 

Can quote in quaint vernacular ; 

'Tis a vain thing to trust in horses. 

Meanwhile Barry, the tumbler, rolls 
His carpet in a knot and strolls 

About until he finds 
A little nook secluded 
Where gaze can be eluded 

And cautiously unbinds 
The covered coin and reads : 
"Forgiven!" — And joy his face o'er spread 
As that transporting word he read. 

IV 

The gymnast, Barry Gray, 
Was young, athletic, gay. 



26 THE TUMBLER 

Adventurous, but not inclined 
To be of wandering step or mind. 
But he was stung to madness by 
A bitter alienation 
Which was like the tormenting fly- 
That stung the daughter of Inachus. 
From station on to station: 
For thwarted love a madness is 
And finds some cure in motion ! 
Oft standing by the ocean 
Where tempests fierce have lately blown, 
And fancies in these elements 
A strife coequal with his own ; 
Or love will humor its distress 
Within a crowd's dense wilderness. 



This surging crowd to view 

Mad Barry in distraction came 
Nor knew that Clara, too. 

Was there from motives just the same 
Surprised and pleased was she 

For reasons best to woman known. 
And so the word "Forgiven'' 

Was down to gymnast Barry thrown. 

That very day did Clara say 
To her resentment a good bye, 

With Barry, then, she flew away 

Swift as two homing doves would fly. 



THE TUMBLER 27 

No rivars threat, no mad appeal, 
No smoking gun, no click of steel, 
Nor plot, intrigue, or dread suspense 
To lash to life the lagging sense ; 

No other sound I ask you hear 
Than wedding bells merry and clear ; 
No other voice your ear to great 
Than that of 'gratulations sweet. 



28 TO MISS C. 



TO MISS C. 

I will forget thy name, I said, 

And fill my heart with joy instead; 

And so I hastened to the sea 

And joined the rounds of gaity. 

I hoped that mirth and music, too, 

Would drown each thought and dream of you. 

In murmurs deep by night and day 

Some other name would ocean say. 

Then on the sand thy name I traced. 

Which the deep sea waves soon effaced; 

''Thus perish from my mind," I cried, 

''This name that melts before the tide." 

O ! blest the tide of time that so 

Can wash away my cause of woe. 

Relieved I loked upon the main,, 
But soon I heard thy name again. 
For now transferred from off the sand 
It ever speaks back to the land. 

"I must away," I cried, "the sea 
But heightens every thought of thes.*' 
And so I climbed a mountain side 
Where rest and quietness abide. 
Where silence is unbroken all 
Save by the rippling waterfall, 



TO MISS C. 29 

Or chance some lonely mountain bird 
Makes stillness yet more plainly heard. 

I threw me on a mossy bank 
And all the summer scene I drank; 
Drank as a hunted, wounded deer 
Drinks of the mountain waters clear, 
There from annoyances to steal 
Until the rankling wound shall heal. 

I cried, "Welcome each sight and sound 
That fills my heart and heals my wound ; 
Welcome sweet nature's healing art 
That takes this fever from my heart." 

E'n now I feel the glowing zest 
Of hope that thrills anew my breast, 
And yon proud eagle, floating high, 
How much alike are he and I. 
And yet how little does he know 
Of all he teaches men below ! 

This royal mint that scents the air 

With fragrance wholesome, sweet, and rare 

Knows not the boon it can convey 

And this is Nature's matchless way 

Of teaching the unselfish plan 

Of winning, helping every man. 

But while I traced these homilies 
There came a murmur through the trees. 



30 TO MISS C. 

It was the sound of a cascade 
Borne up through moss and dell and shade. 
Now faint and now it louder swells 
Sweet as a chime of silver bells. 

let me listen with my heart 
To notes surpassing human art ; 
For this is Nature's masterpiece. 
'Twill ^make my tribulations cease. 
Soon as my heart the voice obeyed 

1 found, alas ! I was betrayed, 
For all I heard was thy dear name. 
Oft and articulate it came 

And filled my soul with deep unrest ; 

And then I fled away distressed 

And found a spot retired, remote, 

Unvisited by any note 

Of rushing waters wild. I heard, 

Alas ! so soon, a warbling bird. 

The feathered imp had learned thy name 

And this he sang ever the same. 

"I yield !" I yield !" I then did cry, 
"Thee to forget no more I'll try. 
My heart and thee have won the day 
Whatever I could do or say. 
I never can thy name forget ; 
Deeper it speaks and deeper yet. 

I thank you, ocean's surging crest, 
That you to me that name expressed ; 



TO MISS C. • 31 

Thanks to the mountain's wild cascade 
For that fond name to me conveyed. 
For sake of that dear bird's address 
That found me in the wilderness, 
And sang to me the name I love, 
I'll prize each songster of the grove. 



32 THE HAMMOCK 



THE HAMMOCK 

There is beside an ancient wood, 
Where forest, sky and meadow meet, 
A lake that mirrors every mood 
Of bank and waving grove 
And changing skies above. 

However fair may be the scene. 

Of mount or vale or hill, 
But add a silver lake or two 

And all is fairer still. 

As in a calm sweet face you see 
Yourself without deformity 
And feel the subtle flattery, 
E'n so Dame Nature from her throne 
Smiles sweet, the compliment to own. 
When viewing from the lakelet's face 
Her charms returned with added grace. 
Long time ago ethreal sprites. 
That jolly crew that make 
Their noble deeds their chief delights, 
Did choose this argent lake, 

Whereon they oftimes sport 
And hold their jovial court. 
Dancing the wave or grassy earth, 
Brushing the air with wing of mirth. 



THE HAMMOCK 33 

Sometimes they make a confidant 

Of him who haunts this bending shore 

And will converse with him, for they 
The race of man have known of yore. 

But heavenly laws forbid a sprite 

To speak with mortals face to face, 
But they on trees and skies niay write. 

And letters on the rocks may trace ; 
Can make the clouds narrate a tale 

That chosen friends may hear, 
And launch a story on the gale 

Meant for the favored ear, 
Make silent oaks repeat each word 

And willows warble like a bird. 
And singers sing in music low 

Far sweeter than the singers know, 
Nor can these heavenly ones declare 

Their nature in our earthly climes. 
There's some who might such knowledge bear 

And secrets with an angel share, 

But very saints grow weak at times. 
Such knowledge is a prize 
To lure men to the skies. 
Till then of Heavenly happiness 
We can but make a reverent guess. 

The bright sojourners of the skies 
We deem to noble and too wise 
To haunt the dwellings of the dead 
Or limp through forests dark and dread 



34 THE HAMMOCK 

To frighten fools, nor do they taint 

The dreams of losel or of saint, 

Nor condescend to aid 

The necromancer's trade 

In dim lit halls where dupes attend 

And vagabonds preside. 
Nor play small tricks in cabinets 
\Yhere only rogues would hide. 
Their sphere enjoins a nobler part 
Than sick men's dreams or villain's art. 
High as tke sage or saint can view 

Is their employ sublime ; 
The smallest deeds that they may do, 

Nor painter could portray 
Nor lofty words convey 

iHprose or subtle rhyme. 
But are such grand capacities 
Bestowed on beings of the skies ? 
Why not? If birds borne far away 
In darkened cage and then set free 
Have homeward like an arrow flown 
Directed by a power unknown ; 
If the dumb myriads of the sea 
Of times and seasons learn, 
Or moles that dig or worms that creep. 

Or reptiles that we spurn 
Untaught may know what man 
Knows not and never can, 
Could not the marvelous fields of space 
Contain a wise and gifted race 
That could o'ertake the fleetest star 



THE HAMMOCK 35 



Upon lightning's flashing car, 
Or sport upseen beside the wood 
Or gaily dance upon the flood? 



II 



'Twas by a lake beneath a tree 
Within his hammock swung 

That Leon heard strange melody, 
As if a song were sung 

Afar within a house of prayer^ 

And wafted slow on evening air, 

A rythmic story to narrate 

In tones clear and articulate. 

'Twas ancient morn of long ago, 
And yet unknown the western seas 
To Norseman oar or Latin prow ; 
'Twas ere Genoa's faithful son 
Had quelled insurgent men and main 
And given the hemisphere he won 
To thankless mercenary Spain ; 
There came upon the land a curse ; 
'Twas not the sacred curse of gold, 
For lands were then unbought, unsold, 
But 'twas in form and feature worse 
As curs and jackals meaner be 
Than lordly lions of the plain. 
'Twas woman's cursed slavery 
That smote the land, and in the train 



36 THK HAMMOCK 

Of this dire wrong there came the rest, 
Hell's compjlement, grim war and pest. 
In treachery of war stout braves 

In stoic agony expire; 
The fathers dug their childrens' graves 

And none repair the sacred fire ; 
War swept men down as autumn's breeze 
Sweeps down the glory of the trees. 

There was a tribe that perished all 

Save a brave chief and Ponca fair, 

And she his only child and heir, 

The heir of lonely grief and care. 

She, fighting by his side, 

Held back the savage tide. 

To give or to evade the blow 

Or hurl the arrow from the bow, 

And like the Parthians they flew 

And arrows hurled as they withdrew 

And still the foe increasing came, 

Pursuing like a storm of flame. 

Then to his child the chief did cry : 

"Haste, now, and to the lake side fly 

And in a hammock hide 

And you will safe abide.' 

When thus his child he had addressed 

An arrow pierced his aged breast ; 

But night did curtain Ponca round 

With shadows drooping to the ground. 

Swift through the wood with noiseless tread 

Unto the lake lone Ponca fled. 



THE HAMMOCK 37 

And on yon shelving bank where fall 
Low drooping boughs and emerald wall, 
She took a panther's tawny hide 
And bough to bough she firmly tied 
Until a hammock strong was made 
Where she could swing, hid by the shade. 

EVENING BOAT SONG 

Our boat is on the wave 

And as we glide along 
Unto the fair and brave 

We'll sing a merry song. 
We'll row and sing and trill 
With jolly whipporwill, la, la, ha, ha, etc. 

The moon floats on the lake. 

The stars are floating, too. 
The owl is wide awake, 

Inquiring who is who. 
We'd rather sing and trill 
With jolly whipporwill, la, la, ha, ha, etc. 

The skies above our head 

With violets are bound ; 
The trees all green and red, 

With brightest flowers are crowned. 
And as the waves advance 
They make the forest dance, la, la, ha, ha. 



38 THE HAMMOCK 

III 

When Ponca knew she was alone, 
Her tribe and all her kindred gone, 
Her sobs, her tears, her stifled wail 
Unanswered fell upon the gale. 
But soon new fancies seized her breast. 
Her fruitless grief was soon suppressed. 
Some spirit of the lake did seem 
To make her life a trance, a dream. 

Nor cruel brave, nor hungry bear. 
Nor savage beast, nor bird of air, 
Nor sacred terrors of the night, 
Nor lightning's flash that brings to light 
The forest bent beneath the gale, 
Nor mingled thunder, rain, and hail. 
Nor autumn's fires with wanton power 
To mar what they cannot devour 
Came near the maid or caused alarms 
Beneath the oak's protecting arms. 
She like a fawn all moveless lay 
While bellowing dangers round play. 

What could this forest maiden know 

Of thought or calm philosophy, 

Of art or grace or gaiety, 

Taught only by the streams that flow 

Or skies or woods, or winds that play 

Or men more dumb and wild than they? 

The mind of Ponca shone 



THE HAMMOCK 39 

From brilliance all her own, 

Not as the sparkling diamonds are : 

Such gems reflect a borrowed light, 

But as a lonely blazing star 

Upon the mystic zone of night. 

She saw the leaves that wove 

A veil from eyes that rove ; 

She saw the crouching flames divide 

And harmless rage on either side. 

Around herself could Ponca see 

A circle of divinity. 

She said 'twas for her sake 

That Minnewauka's arm, 
Great spirit of the lake, 

Had shielded her from harm. 
And when the waves or winds made noise 
She said 'twas Minnewaukau's voice, 
And dreams and visions wild 
Possessed this forest child. 
She saw a mighty throng 

Of lauding subjects round her bent; 
Herself a queen among 

Proud peoples of the Orient; 
A lover, too, she seems to greet, 

A lover and a king, 
He lays rich treasures at her feet 

Which only he could bring. 
And attar fills the air the while, 
Her subjects bask them in her smile. 
As rainbows arch the gems she wore, 
They see, applaud, revere, adore. 



40 THE HAMMOCK 

The vision goes and comes again 
Like flowers revisiting the plain, 
And yet no winter comes between 

These summers of the heart ; 
Fresh flowers blooming bright are seen 

Before the first depart. 



IV 



In ancient times five nations joined 
With mutual pipes and oaths to bind 

A compact of security, 
To which the weaker tribes would flee 
As doves by hawKS pursued 
Fly to the sheltering wood. 
By war unscathed, unterrified 
Their clans in rightful peace abide. 
No honor could be bought or sold ; 
A name outweighed the price of gold, 
And they to woman were more true 
As strong and valorous they grew. 
'Tis man's esteem of woman kind 
Becomes the index of his mind. 

Among the Iroquois 

There was a chieftain's son 
Who when he was a boy 
Great victories had won 
Upon the fields of varied skill 
That test the nerve, the arm, the will. 



THE HAMMOCK 4I 

For they were taught from early youth 
To draw the bow and speak the truth, 
And cope with might in self defense 
Or speak with grace and vehemence, 
And when persuasion failed, then throw 
The spear and bend the mighty bow. 

Lone Eagle was the name he bore, 

And eagle's feathers, too, he wore. 

For none but heroes then could wear 

The plumage of the King of Air. 

Far from his tribe Lone Eagle fled 

And with him two stout braves he led 

Mid hostile woods and plains to go 

'Ere fell the track betraying snow : 

Each armed with quiver, bow, and spear. 

And fibrous sinews of the deer. 

But naught of food these young braves bear, 

For food they trusted to their skill 

The foe to spoil or deer to kill. 

Now bending lowly to the ground 

They'd catch the bison's trampling sound. 

Loud through the air their arrows whirred 

And pierced the leaders of the herd. 

They feast and counsel as they rest. 

Thence hurry onward to the West. 

They swim the Wabash wide, whose flood 

Is darkened by the lofty wood. 

Still on and on till round them rolled 

The prairies, awful to behold. 

The view doth please th' ambitious eye 



42 THE HAMMOCK 

That loves the distant to descry, 
Where aught of life, or storm, or foe 
The sweeping vision learns to know, 
Exulting in a wide command 
That cheers the brow and nerves the hand. 
"Onward, right on," Lone Eagle cries, 
"On where the golden sunset lies ; 
The wind is right, the way is clear, 
But if the armed foe appear 
We'll clear the way. There's rest ahead 
For victor's arms alive or dead." 
Thus on for days ; and as they went 
Their strength and courage grew. 
Grew as the praries in extent, 
Like conquerors who view 
The realms that they subdue. 
Where grove and prairie meet 

Beside a bending river 
They pause to rest their feet ; 

Then from his ample quiver 
Lone Eagle took an arrow true 
And struck a fawn that straight way flew 
Afar into the forest \^ide, 
The arrow clinging to her side. 
The crimson drops on leaf and blade 
Lone Eagle marked through glen and glade 
Until at length he found 
His arrow on the ground. 
He paused at once with strange amaze 
And for a moment stood agaze, 
There seemed a human presence near; 



THE HAMMOCK 43 

He was surprised, but not with fear, 

A maid with eyes of beauty rare 

Gazed from her hammock swinging there. 

Then did recall the brave young chief 

A prophesy both strange and brief, 

E'n of himself, by one who fed 

The sacred fires. The prophet said : 

A thousand steps his arrow flies. 

His bride shall come down from the skies. 

And then with gallant words and true 

The startled Ponca did he woo. 

She thought a man could not be found 

So brave, so eloquent ; 
Then from her hammock did she bound 

And followed where he went. 
Ivone Eagle and his comrades made 
Around the bride a cavalcade, 
As gallantly they journey through 
A realm where foemen swift pursue. 
For soon the word had spread around 
That haughty men from #ar had found 
And seized the maid, lonely and fair. 
And dragged her from her swinging lair. 
"Awake! Pursue!" each savage cries 
And let the swiftest sieze the prize. 
But fortune's favors still are there 
To arm the brave and shield the fair. 
To give the strength of hosts to one, 
To show the path they each should shun. 
Give strength to build the barricade, 
To hurl the arrow or evade. 



44 ^HE HAMMOCK 

At length when many days had fled 

And they had been bewailed as dead, 

(Imaginary ill 

Makes grief more grievous still,) 

They came in triumph with their prize, 

The queenly bride come from the skies. 

Lone Eagle round a glowing flame, 

For all spread fish and choicest game. 

The blaze illumes a circle wide ; 

They feast, they dance with bounding stride. 

Upon the leafy wall around 

Their lofty shadows leap and bound. 

They feast again, the pipe they share ; 

Then suddenly they bound in air 

And join the dance's jolly maze ; 

Thus passed the time for joyous days 

When came Lone Eagle from afar 

Safe mid the poisoned shafts of war 

When long ago a bride he bore, 

From the fair lake's umbrageous shore, 

Bright Ponca of the glorious eye. 

Won from her hammock in the sky. 



RURAL MAIE)S 45 



RURAL MAIDS 



O, ye, that with a childHke trust 

Dwell in the mountain vale, 
To whom the world's grand nothingness 

Doth seem a fairy tale, 
Ye do not know what plagues dis tress 

The gay and gorgeous world ; 
Dream on secure, ye Rural Maids, 
In bowers where no curse invades. 

If few the wants ye have, your needs 
Are few ; grand is your care ; 

To choose which hat, or gown, or shoe 
Is not your theme of prayer. 

And you can as your neighbors do 
Untaxed with mimicry; 

While less of rivalry or hate 

Consumes your peace or your estate. 

I would not speak of coming woe, 
And how you'll suffer wrong. 

When highways bottomless and foul 
Imprison you so long ; 

When gnawed with hunger of the soul 
For social joy and zest, 

You oft have from your window gazed 

Till with 3^our longing you are crazed. 



46 RURAI. MAIDS 

Your booted men will wade the slime 

_> 

And reach their village set, 
And there with gossip, pipe, and bowl 

Will all their cares forget. 
And with a mean, convivial soul 

Think of themselves supreme 
And woman's wrongs they will disdain 
And all her agony of brain. 

But I will draw the curtain down 

Nor lurid scenes disclose, 
I*d rather that my picture be 

In colors of the rose; 
So, now, Dear Maids, behold and see 

Some consolation here 
To smooth your brows and smooth my verse, 
A city life would be still worse. 

For you may daily thank your stars 

That your pure eyes behold 
No well-dressed rake upon the stage 

With words as false as bold, 
Commending vices of the age 

And more to please the herd 
All virtue scorns and ridicules, 
Amid applause from sots and fools. 

Fools ! yes, they like old gnarly trees 

May be of some small use 
To make the shapely ones more grand, 

Bnt, O! I would not choose 



RURAL MAIDS 47 

Whole groves made of knots and gnarls, and 

Good Lord, deliver me 
From, weak theatric throngs that cheer 
Stale vice and at sweet virtue sneer. 

Be glad, ye rural maids, for soon 

Will come a better time; 
No island home, your home shall be 

Within a sea of slime ; 
For highways smooth and hard and free 

And mobiles swift and neat 
Will all be yours; and these possessed, 
Your stars will far outshine the rest. 



48 LOVE 



LOVE. 

Is love a tyrant or a slave, 

A mad or meek control? 
A tiger or a cooing dove 

Of fierce or gentle soul? 

There's much depends upon the man — 

The heart of good or ill, 
The tiger fondling her whelps 

Is just a tiger still. 

Doth love impel the horrid deed, 

The shame of human kind? 
Nay! Nay! 'tis passion gross that rules 

The base or cruel mind. 

The thwarted lecher strikes a blow 

And fills a felon's den; 
The thwarted lover, great of soul, 

Becomes the king of men. 

Love is a holy principle 

And grandly great and bold, 

When passion's dross has burned away 
And left the finest gold. 



GERALD AND ETHEL 49 



GERALD AND ETHEL. 

The snow on his cloak lay spangled and white 
Though his heart beneath was fervent and 

light. 
He flew o'er the hills, he sped through the 

vale 
Where snow mist was blinding and day grew 

pale. 
The darkness is deeper, the winds wail loud, 
The eddies are weaving for earth a shroud. 
The spirit of winter moans through the trees, 
Yet Ethel hears not the sigh of the breeze. 
For love is stronger than tempest or cold ; 
When all else is shrinking, love will be bold, 
For now she was waiting, faithful she stood 
Out in the storm by the dark waving wood. 
On her wide winter cloak the snow drops lay, 
Her soul as pure and spotless as they. 

O ! hinder him not, ye darkness and snow ; 
I hear him coming ! I see him ! O ! no. 
What means this moaning that strikes like a 

dart? 
And O ! this coldness that steals to my heart ! 
Shall I fly to my room, whence I have fled ? 
Never! I'll seek Gerald living or dead. 



50 GERALD AND ETHEL 50 

iVway went Ethel through the gloom of 

night; 
Love scattered the darkness, love winged her 

flight. 
She noted each shadow, she heard each moan, 
And there 'neath the pines where gloom 

reigned alone, 
A place where fiends would dare the dark 

deed, 
She saw mid the blackness a waiting steed, 
And there enwrapped in the robes of his 

sleigh 
Bleeding and dying her loved Gerald lay. 
The truth through the darkness flashed on 

her mind; 
She seized the strong reins, she sped like the 

wind. 
'Twas plain a rival by jealousy led 
Had struck Gerald down and left him for 

dead. 

But help was soon found; a surgeon's skill 
Joined Ethel's fond care and loving good 

will. 
And life came back; light returned to his 

eyes; 
Love yet will triumph and win the grand 

prize. 



GERALD AND ETHEL 5 1 

Cold as the moon rose the sun in the air 

O'er Ethel's loved home, but she was not 
there. 

Call Ethel! Why does she silent remain? 

Cried her father, but cried only in vain. 

They search far around, but no trace can dis- 
close 

Save only her tracks half hid by the snows; 

But far to a cottage their way is led, 

Where they find her bringing life to the dead. 

No pleading is needed; parents relent, 
And to the lovers a blessing is sent. 
When winter no longer maddens the breeze 
And blue birds and robins sing in the trees, 
Gerald and Ethel were wedded one day 
As happy birds that are nesting in May. 



52 A BEAUTIFUL FACE 



A BEAUTIFUL FACE. 

I am so charmed when'er I view 
Upon a woman's face 
Expression, form, and color, too, 

A trinity of grace. 
That I am forced in self-defense, 
(To keep my mind controlled by sense) 

That face to analyze 
In light of calm philosophy, 

As if within the skies 
A wondrous group of stars I saw 
To be resolved by Cosmic law 
And mapped and measured out by me; 
A starry realm not mine, yet mine, 

Almighty, yet serene. 
Material, and yet divine. 

As clear and yet unseen. 
So shy and yet so bold, 
So warm and yet so cold; 
And still I do survey 
And note, divide and weigh; 
As some hard botanist would take 
A lily and should shred and break 
And list each riven part 
With speculative art, 
And analyze the beautiful 
For benefit of science cool. 



A BEAUTIFUL FACE 53 

11. 

Now, then, to my analysis: 
A beauteous face resolved is this — 
Expression, Form, and Color, too, 
Harmonious blent to please the view. 

FORM. 

Fine form — or native or acquired, 
Beloved by most, by all admired. 
To every age doth seem to show 
The friend and not the obtrusive foe. 
Great nature doth smooth form approve 
In spheres rotund that circling move, 
In rain drops round, in brooks that curve 
Around hard rocks that will not swerve; 
In manners polished well that woo 
Assent from mind and conscience too; 
E'n villians oft, when smooth, prevail, 
While honesty, when rough, will fail. 

COLOR. 

Fine color was by heaven designed 

To feast the eye and please the mind. 

In cheek or lip or blushing rose. 

Or tints of morn or evening's close, 

The notes we learn to know 

Of Nature's Oratorio. 

The topaz and the beryl's sheen. 



54 A BEAUTIFUL FACE 

The turquois blend of blue and green, 
The emerald and amethyst, 
The opal's gay and gorgeous mist 
Are tones that voice the heavenly mind 
That in the urim was divined ; 
While rocks that dark and formless be 
Are discords in the symphony, 
Repellant as a murky face 
That is devoid of color's grace, 
While flash of eye and hue of cheek 
In wining notes of concord speak, 
This to delight, that to repel, 
A heaven this ; and that a hell. 

EXPRESSION. 

Of these, 'tis my belief 
Expression is the chief 
Component of a charming face; 
All yield to her the honored place. 
For by expresions skillful aid 
Are love's most potent conquests made. 
Fine form and color transient reign; 
Expression conquers to retain. 
Expression is the flash that tells 
Where beauty's mighty spirit dwells, 
With hidden forces and relays 
That fill and yet elude the gaze. 

O ! I have seen a wight that saw 
His counterpart in some plain face, 



A BEAUTIFUL FACE 55 

A face defiant of each law 

Of color, form, or gentle grace, 

And yet to his subjective sight 

'Twas perfect beauty and delight. 

Affinity of opposites 

Oft ends in holy marriage rites. 

Beware the charms concealed behind 

The subtle masteries of mind ; 

Well aimed and keen the shafts that be 

Hurled from the masked battery. 

But shall I tell you how to gain 
The gift of beauty and retain? 

Think not of charms that you would own 
Nor to yourself your wish be known, 
For Beauty is a maiden shy ^ 
And from her wooers she will fly, 
But will her liberal gifts convey 
To those who look from her away. 
If then to win her be your plan. 
Strive first to be a perfect man, 
Or perfect woman, sane and whole 
In mind, in body and in soul. 

And you must walk where few have gone, 
And you must fly where few have flown. 
And feel those joys that make life new, 
Peculiar to the favored few. 

And you must feast upon the rare 
Ambrosia of angelic fare, 



56 A BEAUTIFUL FACE 

And store the wealth that few possess 
If you would own rare happiness, 
And happiness can beautify 
More than all else beneath the sky. 
Not that you dare the polar zone, 
Try seas afar, and ports unknown, 
Or climb the Pyramids, or scale 
The Alps or Rocky Mountain trail. 
Or peep at mausoleum old, 
And all art treasures should behold. 
And wonders rare should gaze upon 
Spread out from Ind to Albion. 

Not these, for scores have seen and will 
Remain ill-favored mortals still. 
But rather let your curious eye 
Search rarer regions nearer by; 
Climb Fancy's Alps or Pyramid, 
View scenes from common mortals hid. 
And in the life of here and now 
Find Beauty's gems to deck your brow: . 
And may that beauty be in you 
The lustre of the good and true. 



HOMEWARD 57 



HOMEWARD. 



A marvellous mocking bird 

Some how had heard 

That I was going on the morning train 

And came at peep of day 

And sang a medley gay 
And sweetly begged me to remain. 

Then changing his fashion 

Into a passion, 

From bough to bough skyward sang he; 

Then wheeling round and round 

From tree top to ground 
With mighty pathos in his plea. 

The skies of deepest blue, 

The gales that woo, 

The sound of the surf far away. 

And gorgeous hue and bloom 

And tropical perfume 
In concert sang, "Stay awhile, stay. 

Fond friends around me throng 

With mirth and song 

And subtle art and winning wile 
By wood and sea and camp 
And the parlor's bright lamp, 

And craftily said, "Stay awhile." 



58 HOMEWARD 

But they strive all in vain 

Me to detain, 

Though skillful and sincere they are; 
In all this fair world round 
No minstrehy can drown 

The song of the loved home afar. 



THE DEATH OF MARCELLUS 59 

THE DEATH OF MARCELLUS. 
[Translated from Virgil.] 

What handsome youth is that whose weapons 

shine ? 
He seems the son of an illustrous line! 
Applause resounds, and pageants near him 

tread, "" 

But sable night is gathering round his head ; 
Joyless he seems ; his eyes no lustre shed. 
Ye gods! Rome's sons were more like gods 

than men 
Had your celestial gifts perpetual been. 
And so the favored youth Marcellus dies, 
Too great for earth when envied of the skies. 
Thou Tiber dost behold an empire's woe 
As near his tomb thou glidst in silent flow. 
Bring blooming flowers, bring lilies wet with 

dew, 
These to the shade of brave Marcellus strew: 
And ye of martial deeds that know no fear. 
In battle groan and pour the manly tear, 
For none on foot could meet his flashing 

blade 
And none his foaming courser could evade. 
The Trojan line shall not excel his name. 
Nor land of Romulus eclipse his fame. 



6o CONQUEST 



CONQUEST. 

Have you not seen some weary zone 
With only rocks or brambles strewn, 
And you have wished that trees were there 
And gardens green and fruitage rare? 

E'n so there is an arid waste 
In every sphere where you are placed; 
Some barren realm that you should seize^ 
Reclaim and plant with heavenly trees. 

That desert realm may be within, 
So with yourself the work begin; 
Plant seeds of truth where thorns abound, 
Then clear and till the stubborn ground. 

Thence like bold Colon seek where grand 
And wider wastes invite your hand, 
For he who can himself subdue 
Can subjugate the savage too. 



THE BENEFICENT OCEAN 6 1 



THE BENEFICENT OCEAN. 

Some sing t;he ocean's sounding shore 

And echo back her wail and roar, 

Or paint her changing hue and mood, 

Her melancholy solitude, 

Her calm, severe or fitful reign 

O'er her vast empire's old domain. 

As on a magic screen they show 

The calms that smile, the storms that blow. 

Then hold a conch close to your ear 

That you some murmurings should hear. 

But, O! methinks 'tis vain for thee 

To try to paint sublimity, 

Or motion swift or roar sublime, 

As if you'd set in words of rhyme 

Lightning and tempest that the while 

Belike stage thunder move a smile. 

Much rather would I choose to sing 
The Ocean's wide beneficence; 

Her storms a joyous murmuring. 
Her empire man's defense: 
Her gales the chiding of a friend, 
Her tempests only to defend 
From greater harm; her mists and tides 
A care that ceaselessly abides. 
Had ancient seas, where sails unfurled 
Wafted the commerce of a world, 



62 THE BENEFICENT OCEAN 

(The classic world that first arose,) 
Been peaks of supercilious snows, 
Or plains swept b^ fierce gales of sands, 
Dividing races, nations, lands, 
Troy had inspired no singer's tongue 
Nor Virgil echoed Homer's song. 
Nor Solon sailed from shore to shore 
Enriched by trade in law and lore, 
For there had been no cities brave. 
No isles to gem the storied wave. 

Then hail ! Thou mighty friend ! no chain 
Can bind, no gold thy high domain 
Can buy; no hireling touch can mar 
Thy charms or spoil thy wealth; no war 
Can rob thee, or once can desecrate 
Thy shrine or scatter thine estate. 

Though man would spoil thee ,if he dare, 
vStill thou dost make mankind thy care. 
For man thou breathest health. Thy gales 
To waft life and ten thousand sails 
Bear clouds of fertile rain 
To slake the thirsty plain, 
Thou, colleague of the God of day 
And partner of the moon's mild sway. 
Thou, with thy globe-embracing arm 
Art fiercely kind, sublime of charm. 



MATTIE AND I 63 



MATTIE AND I. 

Who thinks, and I am sure she knows, 
That of all flowers the queenly rose 
The fairest, loveliest flower that blows? 

Mattie. 

Who thinks the rose is not so fair 
As Mattie's cheek and forehead are 
Nor with her beauty can compare? 

I do. 

Who thinks the stars of summer night 
Are wonderful in beauty bright 
Forever seen with new delight? 

Mattie. 

Who thinks the star-lit tropic skies 
Profoundly deep in midnight dyes 
Less wonderful than Mattie's eyes? 

I do. 



64 ANACREONTIC 



ANACREONTIC. 

The sun a struggle vain hath made, 

With all his glowing might, 
To hurl his shafts beneath the shade 

And drive out dim twilight; 
While saucy love with perfect ease 
Wounds in the dark e'n whom he please. 
And laughs to let his arrows fly 
And hit the apple of the eye. 

When healing springs of waters rare 

By nature nicely brewed, 
Where scenes of rugged beauty are 
Fair Nature making mortals fair 

Their charms by charms renewed, 
Here liquid health bounds up to kiss 
The lip of youth or glowing miss, 
Yet kisses all in vain for love 
Off to the springs will slyly rove 
And plant confusion in the face 
And fix the eye with sickly gaze. 
Great Nature yields to Love's decree 
And smiles upon her victory. 

When all the glories of the land 

Come forth to meet the sun, 
When wood and sea extend the hand 



ANACREONTIC 65 

To every tired one: 
When children loudly call 

Round fragrant stocks of wheat and hay, 
Or over garden wall, 

Or with white sands of sea shore play, 
Then older heads try serious thought 
'Neath solemn shade by science taught. 
Right well 'tis called a summer school 
For high instruction calm and cool. 
But learned themes are half in vain. 
For Love with his distracting train, 
Within the tent secures a pass 
To tx}ach his arts to every class. 
Love then in satisfaction smiles 
His pupils learn so many wiles. 

Along a mountain's rugged way 

Behold a chieftain ride: 
A mighty enterprise is his : the day 
Looks down on him with pride. 
With foam his steed is spangled o'er 
White as the waves upon the shore 

When mightiest gales subside. 
Dead falls the steed to rise no more; 
No lingering here to weep distress; 
He gives the beast a last caress, 
Then up and on from rock to rock 
He meets the gale; defies its shock: 
Confronts the cougar's frenzied ire; 
Her eyes of green and yellow fire 
Seem but a glow worm's flame, as back 



66 ANACREONTIC 

He hurls each desperate attack. 

Encounters next wild robber men 

Amid the cliffs that wall their den. 

The rattling muskets crash 

The polished Bowie's flash 

Play on the mountain's furrowed ledge 

Like lightning on the tempest's edge. 

'Tis done! The brigands yield! The spoils 

Are his; his were the dangerous toils. 

Descending to the vale below 

Love draws on him the fatal bow. 

A pretty maid peeps from her bower 

To see the hero of the hour. 

Her glance is only Cupid's dart 

With fatal wound to pierce his heart. 

At once he yields to Love's sweet thrall; 

Love conquering him, has conquered all. 



THE UNWRITTEN 67 



THE UNWRITTEN. 

There's many things unread 

In books or words of teacher, 
And songs ne'er sung or said 

By minstrel, sage or preacher. 
Though songs and books should multiply 
'Neath every grove and dome and sky. 

A word is but a guide 

That points the index finger 
Where brighter fancies bide: 

O'er words then do not linger, 
But onward fly to regions blest 
Where thoughts are grandly unexpressed. 

Two lovers wrapt in bliss. 

When night falls softly sable, 
Perchance will steal a kiss 

While things unutterable 
They feel : things that might well befit 
The holy book of the unwrit. 

A gazer in the night 

Stands silent looking starward; 
His face bespeaks delight 

As fancy plunging forward 
Roams joyous on from star to star; 
O ! let no words his vision mar ! 



68 THE UNWRITTEN 

A youth the future day 

Explores in awe and wonder, 

O! let him dream away 
And rapturously ponder; 

I would not dash his gorgeous dream, 

Nor crush the flowers that only seem. 

And in the varied sphere 

Of man's religious dreaming, 

Though some should hold most dear 
The mystic and the seeming; 

Seek not with frozen words to bind 

The harmless freedom of the mind. 

But hail great words that bear 

The soul above its sorrow ; 
That take the sting from care 

And make today tomorrow. 
Transforming clouds to genial skies 
And rugged earth to Paradise. 



OF MANY BOOKS 69 



OF MANY BOOKS. 

There's many idle words and trivial things 
The dreamer says and sings, 
And you must winnow heaps of chaff to gain 
Perchance one golden grain. 

And books like countless locusts swarm and 

fly 
And swift as locusts die ; 
These myriads winged cicadas of the press 
'Tis vain to try suppress. 

Is there not use for chaff and locusts all 
And autumn leaves that fall? 
For mark you how much seems to waste away 
Created for decay. 

What ocean's vast in genial light are tossed 
Off from the sun and lost; 
One ray in millions strike©, planet's face 
The rest are drowned in space. 

The leaves that dance awhile and lose their 

hold 
Will make a fertile mold ; 
So mortal lives and works downed by the 

blast 
Enrich the world at last. 



70 WRANGUNG PHILOSOPHERS 

WRANGLING PHILOSOPHERS. 

You'd think philosophers superior to 

Mist, moonshine or the wildest storms that 

brew 
In all terrestrial air ; for have they not 
Deep anchored to the stars their heavenly- 
thought, 
E'n as a ship is anchored to a rock? 
Why should they quiver, then, at the small 

shock 
Of zephyrs light? and flecks of foam? Why 

sound 
Alarm as though the deep were stirred pro- 
found ? 
'Tis this : Your high philosopher is made 
Of chemic parts just as the sons of trade 
And toil. But more than this, (the trope to 

change) 
His meditations take a narrow range. 
And as he narrows, grows the more intense 
With less and less of worldly wit and sense. 
Impetuous, then, is he like torrents pent 
In narow gorge where all their force is spent; 
Which stream at times though noiseless 

quite and dry 
Is terrible when storms are passing by. 
But, then, thank Heaven, less dangerous is 

the full 
Mad torrent than the wide and stagnant pool. 



THE POET'S REALM 7 1 



THE POET'S REALM. 

The poet's telescopic eye 

Rmotest star realms can descry, 

Then from the universal sphere 

He turns to things minute and near. 

Planets or plants he can survey, 

To mice or monarchs tune his lay, 

He dreams with saint and seer and sage. 

Laughs with gay Comus of the stage. 

Sings with the lark on field and moor. 

Roars with the ocean's sounding shore, 

He echoes war's most dread appeal 

Or dances a plain country reel, 

Or city waltz with whirling heel; 

Weeps with the mourner by the tomb, 

Smiles with the new made bride and groom; 

Soldier or Senator is he. 

Or sword or words his weapons be. 

At home he views the tropic seas 

And flies to either pole with ease. 

Mid Arctic ice or balmy isles 

Alike he plays or scolds or smiles, 

All ages pass before his e3^e. 

The near is far, the far is nigh. 

The solid mount, the flowing stream, 
Or lonelv walk or marts that teem. 



72 THE POET'S REALM 

Or wintry peak or vale of spring, 
Or stalwart oak or vines that cling — 
And all contrasting scenes doth he 
Attune to his smooth minstrelsy. 

But cold philosophy severe, 
The level, passionless and drear 
He shuns ; and never yet his song 
Has been in tune with tyrant wrong; 
And if by chance he for awhile 
Defend old wrong or bondage vile. 
He sings a feeble, lisping rhyme, 
Disc ordant, harsh and out of time. 
Soon weary of an alien strain 
He sings his native song again. 
The mighty theme of liberty 
And how to make men great and free 
Now siezes him with high control, 
Beats with his heart, breathes with his soul. 

And yet what'er the poets theme. 
Or dreadful strife or downy dream. 
Sweet love is goddess of his day 
The sun and monarch of his lay ; 
'Tis love with vehemence divine 
In every page and word will shine. 



TO L A 73 



TO L- 



If day or night I cannot tell 
And yet do I remember well 

That hour when last we met : 
All trembling like a storm tossed tree 
Shook by a tempest sure were we, 

A blast of wild regret; 

For love's sweet summer day had flown, 
Its violets and roses gone; — 

While only withered leaves 
Remain tossed by the blinding blast 
Reminding of the summer passed 

And joy that only grieves. 

But why this change ? As well 
To ask why tempests fierce and fell 

Sweep Porto Rico fair, 
To devstate and crush and bend 
And wound and wreck and twist and rend 

All life and beauty there : 

As well to urge the lightning's stroke 
To smite the weeds and spare the oak. 

Or beg the winter gale 
On rocks and shrubs to vent its wrath 



74 "^o h A 

Where leads the rugged mountain path 
And spare the verdant vale. 

Your hand in mine along we went 
Where genial skies above us bent, — 

And happy years were those, 
Then blighting alienations came — 
Or if 'twas you or I to blame 

I seek not to disclose. 
Let silence with a mantle white 
Conceal your woes and mine from sight, 

As snow conceals the grave ; 
For the dead past the world weeps not, 
But yearns for joy in hall or cot. 

And triumphs of the brave. 

And then if we to men about 
The cup of hope and life hold out 

They will not care to drain 
The chalice of old bitterness. 
Wrung from our dark and stale distress, 

The very dregs of pain. 

To him the world is harsh and rude 
Who prates about ingratitude : 

But there are smiles for those 
Who bloom with joys that men can see, 
Like May days' gorgeous apple tree. 

Or fragrant ruby rose. 



TO h A 75 

'Twas a barbarian belief 

The bitten man was rogue or thief 

Struck by avenging rod ; 
But when they saw no harm was felt, 
Before the bitten saint they knelt 

And worshipped him as God. 

The world to-day is just the same 
In spite of creed or cloak or name : 

It curses him who faints ; 
So let us firmly keep our feet 
And gladly breathe the incense sweet 
That's burned before the saints. 



76 TO F- 



TO F- 



I wandered through a busy foreign street 
Where now the ancient and the modern meet. 
Cathedrals vast in reverend grandeur rose, 
The sculptureii marbles speak, the canvas 

glows. 
While over all was thrown that glorious haze 
That is transmitted down from ancient days. 

But all these scenes to me are falsely shown, 
For I, alas ! am wand' ring there alone ; 
No one is near with kindred heart and eye 
Each scene to share and each to beautify. 

I thought that Ruben s^ canvas was too red, 
On Turner's too much fog and haze were 

spread ; 
I thought that many a worthless marble piece 
Had been exhumed from ruined Rome and 

Greece. 
While in this mood perplexed behold I meet 
A friend, one whom it is a joy to greet. 
And now I view all things with better eyes, 
The lurid glare from Ruben s^ canvas flies, 
And Turner's fogs are sun mists sure to 

please, 
Venus of Milo is a master piece. 



TO F 77 

Just such a friend and more are you, I own ; 
You came when I was harsh, a stranger lone ; 
All things around were tinct in lurid dyes. 
The earth was wrong, so were the skies : 
Now aided by your genial eyes and mind, 
Earth and Heaven change, and face of human 

kind, 
A golden glory paints the world anew 
And gladdens every path that I pursue. 

For when you say you love the rural 

scene — 
The vales, the wooded hills, the meadows 

green, 
The thoughtful silence of the solitude, 
Or warblers of the orchard, field and wood 
Then do I gaze upon the country fair 
And charms behold I never thought were 

there, 
The woodland sings, the hills repeat the song. 
The arching skies the melody prolong. 

When F lisps her praise of ocean's 

shore. 
Or silent wonders when the billows roar. 
Or daintily imprints the pearly sand 
With feet that linger long upon the strand, 
I love th'e sea shore then ; yes, all the time 
I have declared the ocean was sublime 



78 TO F 

And beautiful in every changing mood, 
A realm of wonders not a solitude. 

Should F then return unto the street 

Most pleased familiar scenes and friends to 

greet 
Then on the city's frowning walls I read : 
Here is the place for life and joy indeed, 
Here minds with minds in emulation rise 
And sparkling wit illumes the social skies. 

Should F dear, amusive read the page 

Of poet, saint, philosopher or sage, 

'Tis then I vow I have such loving zest 

For Plato, Homer, Ruskin and the rest, 

I walk with Plato in the grove divine. 

With armed Achilles break the Trojan line. 

Or revel mid Venetian scenes anew, 

Or wond'ring gaze on Alpine gentian blue. 



TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 79 



TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

O ! Twentieth Century, thy fame 
Shall be great ; thou wast born 

Mid mighty welcomes that proclaim 
A giant's natal morn. 

More than Herculean labors thine, 

A mighty task if not divine ; 

To strangle beasts and serpents old 

That feast on human flesh and gold; 

To slay Stymphalian birds that feed 

On dying men : to stay the greed 

Of monstrous wealth and power ; e'n then 

Thy mighty task will just begin. 

For thou must bring with mighty hand 

Apples of gold so long 
Concealed in that dim fairy land 

Of hope and airy song, 
The visions of the seer and sage, 
Hesperian dreams of every age, 
And make this Century to be 
The cycle of humanity; 
And place the people on the throne 
Where manhood rules and rules alone. 

O! Hercules who shall command 
Thee do this work? Shall Switzerland? 



8o TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

vShall bright New Zealand of the West * 
Eurysthean Island of the blest? 
Who shall direct this golden time, 
Surpassing brightest hopes sublime? 

America, thou once didst guide 
Man's struggling race. Thou wast the pride 
Of nations, for thou wast not then 
The prey of mercenary men. 

Awake my native land, before 
Thy poor become abjectly poor ! 
'Ere Pluto cast thy people down 
And wear a tyrant's sword and crown. 

America, 'tis not too late ; 

Thou still hast youth and life ; 
Thou art not yet degenerate. 

And dead to noble strife. 
To make all nations ,ereat and free 

Go join the chosen few 
Who in this mighty century 
Shall make the world anew. 



* Reference is here made to the Initiative and Referendum in 
Switzerland and g-overnmeutal control of certain corporations in 
New Zealand. These movements in the direction of popular gov- 
ernment, when taken together with other reform^s, place these two 
peoples in the forefront of modern progress and lead us to believe 
that the Twentieth Century will see the whole world happily gov- 
erned by the people for the people. 



TWO VOICES — A REVERIE 



8l 



TWO VOICES— A REVERIE 

At that long season of the year 

When leaf and grass are brown and sere, 

And mournful music from the trees 

Falls on the ear in minor keys, 

A rugged voice doth call me forth 

To meet and battle with the north, 

And conquer storm and cold and place 

The flush of vict'ry on my face. 

So when within the hall I meet 

My friends, a victor they will greet. 

II 

'Ere long another voice is heard to say; 

From tyrant Winter haste thee, haste away. 
Tis vain to battle with a senseless storm. 

For cold means death, and winter is deform. 

Haste to the land where blooming flowers ex- 
hale 

And genial life is wafted on the gale 

Where every scene wears beauty's perfect 
dress 

And every passing gale is a caress. 

Go rest thee by the shore of Southern seas 

Where laughing waves respond to humming 
bees, 



82 TWO VOICES — A REVERIE 

There, free from the erosion of unrest, 
Breathe deep and slow and for a while be 
blest. 



Ill 



Then comes a voice in swift reply, 
Declaring that the Southern sky 
Will lull thee into mean repose 
Such as the idle dreamer knows : 
Thy life in ease will ebb away, 
Ambition fall into decay; 
The mind bound with a sensuous chain, 
The meaner powers will rise and reign 
As when a captain on the deep 
Indulge in reverie or sleep 
And then the crew, of baser mind, 
Will sudden rise and sieze and bind 
The captain and disgrace the sea 
With lewd and lawless revelry; 
Or anchor in some port of ease 
Mid harpies of the land and seas ; 
The master bound they mar the shore ; 
The base grown baser than before. 



IV 



Then willing quite to hear the other side 
I listened to the voice that soon replied : 



TWO VOICES — A REVERIE 83 

If Southern gales should make the calm at 

length, 
'Tis but the calm of conscious right and 

strength. 
See from the warm Mediterranean shore, 
How mighty men have ever gone before; 
New thoughts, new lands, new worlds to bring 

to light 
To chase away the gloom of Northern night. 
And with a calm yet proud and regal tread 
The long procession of the nations lead. 
Foundations first were laid in Southern clime 
For number's Fane, symmetrical, sublime. 
The Arabs then that temple did adorn 
When Northern nations were as yet unborn. 
Who equals Cadmus^ name or even can. 
Whose art of arts embalmed the words of 

man? 
'Twas mid Aegean isles that song was first 
Begun that through the world is now re- 
hearsed. 

Philosophy, born in the open air, 
Attained immortal energy: 'twas where 
The olive flourished and the fig was blue 
The son of Sophroniscus from Heaven drew 
Divine philosophy to m.ortal view: 
And Moses meek, the Midian gentleman, 
Lawgiver not* alone of race and clan 
Perpetual, but king of nations he 



84 TWO VOICES — ^A REVERIE 

To charm the flimty rock, divide the sea 
And lead great peoples on as once he led 
A band of freedmen clamoring for bread : 
And other seers by time and space remote 
Who yet that olden book in concert wrote : 
An He of Galilee, the man divine 
In whom all royal names in splendor shine, 
Taught out of doors : by palm or sea his school 
Where only breezy shades or seas were cool. 
Art, science, law, were born 'neath sunny 

skies ; 
Religion, too, and all her mystf'ies. 
Once westward was the son of Terah sent 
And Yakyamuni to the Orient, 
Where Zoroaster truth with error blent, 
And Ormuszd bright proclaimed and Ahri- 

man, 
Whence the wise Parsees of the East began : 
And he of Mecca in the South arose 
When all the saints in crust divisions froze. 
And scourged the church back into life ; 'Twas 

he 
Rebuked contention and idolatry 
And left a race, a creed, a work behind. 
The wonder, the enigma of mankind. 



The voices ceased ; I answereci then ; 
I'll choose both North and South and when 



TWO VOICES — A REVERIE 85 

'Tis inconvenient for me 
To loiter by a Southern sea 
I'll stay at home mid heat or snow 
And watch the seasons come and go : 
Delighted with the circling view; 
Dissolving scenes forever new; 
A thousand changes here conveyed 
Without my cost, without my aid ; 
For it is not the balmy breeze 
Nor yet the climes that chill and freeze 
That make men wise or weak or great, 
But 'tis the use of your estate. 
There's health in all the gales that blow, 
Or soft with balm or keen with snow; 
Wonders in all lands, seas and skies, 
Or clad in flowers or glinting ice, 
And kindred souls can ever find 
The genial heart, the aspiring mind. 



86 HAPPINESS 



HAPPINESS. 

One summer day I had some neighbors mine 
Come in and chat a social while and dine. 
To make more pleasant the event 
My invitations nice were only sent 
To those unlike, for there's affinity 
Of opposites — or so it seemed to me — 
I asked the richest man around ; and, too. 
The poorest man that was not worth a sou ; 
The dreamer and the man of public strife, 
And others from extremes of human life — 

The pauper and the Croesuses indeed 
Both came at once, as if agreed ; 
Then dreaming Somniosus talking to 
Himself and looking in the air to view 
Some placid palace swinging there; all these 
Did seem surprisingly at ease 
And smiled to see themselves, a picture quite 
Contrasting in his hues, its shade and light. 



II 



Now while for some the fragrant tea was 

poured, 
And viands plain went nimbly from the board. 



HAPPINESS 87 

I ask each one that he in brief express 

His views regarding human happiness. 

And first I asked the poor man to relate 

What he esteemed for man the happiest state. 

And then Paupertas said : 'Tis wealth brings 
ease 

And elegance and they can always please. 

The poor man owns a strenuous life oppressed, 

The rich man can relax and grow and rest. 

Ten thousand servants on you will attend; 

You'll never stand in need of help or friend ; 

All men that sail the sea or toil on land 

Serve you without your care or your com- 
mand. 

Men will speak well of you before your face, 

Your dog too fat, your horse too lean they'll 
praise, 

Your wrongs forgive and say, while they con- 
done. 

Were I but he, his faults would be my own. 

All knowledge microscopic or sublime, 
The gold saved from the grinding mill of 

time, 
The gifts of every age and land and sea 
And wide earth's ever changing scenery 
Are yours with ministry of joy immense 
Should you but wisely use earth's opulence. 

But if this wealth demand a labored quest 



88 HAPPINESS 

You are prepaid in wholesome toil and zest 

And I am not alone in giving this 

Advice, for millions dream of fortunes bliss 

And only spurn wealth's power, and joy and 
pride, 

When to themselves that wealth had been de- 
nied 

And e'n that church that most commends the 
poor 

Is opulent with alms, and grasps for more. 

Ill 

He said; and Croesus then replied severe 
To chide the wrong and make the right way 

clear. 
With glances sharp at him who just sat down 
He thus discoursed: If you would wear the 

crown 
Of happiness, O ! choose you not the weight 
Of riches or the care of an estate : 
No wealth to make men praise you to your 

face 
E'n while they plot your ruin or disgrace. 

The rich assailed by every envious mind 
Like mountain peaks exposed to every wind 
Forbidding are and chill as mountain snow 
While poverty, calm in the vale below, 
Fervent, communicative and serene, 
Laughs with his children sporting on the 

green. 



HAPPINESS 89 

Expansive as the clouds and mountains blue 
His garden is the earth, the Heavens, too, 
The Universe and God complete his store 
Nor mortal man nor angel could have more 
And all secure by title deed divine. 
He can sublimely say, all things are mine. 
No so the man who hold by human fee, 
For oft he challenges his warranty. 
Suspicious that, e'n while he yet may live 
Capricious men can take what they can give. 

Poor Dives is esteemed a happy man. 
His riches serve him well as riches can. 
And yet mistrusting men and fearing blame 
He fears to let his generous nature blaze 
xA.nd so he mopes and shuns the public gaze 
And not with buoyant life he seems to glow 
But as the dodder frail or mistletoe. 
That vilely feeds upon another's life 
And so reproved by poverty's wan strife 
He buys a yacht and sails the ocean's tide, 
Dives in the mountains — any where to hide. 
Estranged from wholesome thought and toil. 

his veins 
With venom flow, his form is racked with 

pains. 
With ashen face from clime to clime he flies 
Til scenes and climates fail, and then he dies, 
And leaves his bags of gold beside the way 
To guild some youthful scion's swift decay 



90 HAPPINESS 

Or debts of old degenerate dukes to pay. 
How fitting 'tis that gold to folly left 
Perchance was won by fraud or lawful theft. 

But should the rich cold and insensate be 
To cries of need and wrongs of poverty, 
All plethoric and adipose are they 
Like the fat goose that is the fox's prey 
While leaner ones will rise and fly away : 
Or they, the figure changed, like rankest 

wheat, 
When tempests rise, fall by their useless 

weight. 
And still some foe is near the rich to seize 
Or flattery, vice, fear or rank disease 
Or titled fools that swarm across the seas ; 
These crowd the rich man's path or lie in wait 
And find access through some ungarded gate. 

Such is the doom of those who gold adore, 
vSuch is the fate of all their heavy store. 
Beware gold's bright deceit and choose to be 
The child of toil and decent poverty. 

He said, then Somniosus rose 
And this the theme and these the words he 
chose : 
'Tis neither wealth nor poverty can bring 
The happiness of which the poets sing 
And sages called chief good, the good su- 
preme. 



HAPPINESS 91 

And old philosophers oft made their theme; 
And school men cogitated in their mind, 
Themselves the blind conductors of the blind. 

VVe need not seek afar the fortune blest, 
'Tis near at hand and waits to be a guest. 
They call me idle dreamer yet I know 
A busy life is chiefest good below. 
For rich or poor, the foolish or the wise 
The happiness of all in action lies — 
The sad is motionless e'n like a stone, 
The joyous is to action ever prone. 
See how the moping owls complain and stare 
While swallows twitter joyous through in air • 
The gurgling brook makes merry all the scene 
While idle ponds enrobed in venom green 
Repel the eye and envious send abroad '■ 

Miasma, persecuting fly, and toad. 
See how the idle rich mid viands pine 
While toiling poor on vegetals will dine 
And in each dish find flavor and delight 
Unknown to idly pampered appetite. 

O ! blest the rich who wisely seek and find 
Brown toil — the toil that occupies the mind. 
1 blest the poor who mid each varying ill 
Can find some chosen occupation still. 
The whys and wherefores T need not declare 
It is enough to state things as they are.. 
Thus spake the idle dreamer : Next I call 
An active man, the busiest of all. 



92 HAPPINESS 

Said he : 'A life of calm high thought is best, 
But think you are, and you are happiest. 
If you would drink of the Emperean spring 
You first must gain its source on Fancy's 

wing. 
As active as a swallow, you will find 
The actor has a swallow's trivial mind. 
But thought and fancy move serene along, 
Than time or subtle elements more strong. 
The Fancy can, by swift volition led. 
Illume a dungeon, glorify a shed ; 
Can spurn the ills that rack the m.ind and frame 
And say that agony is but a name. 
Exultant smile mid blistering tongues of fire, 
With rapture, not with burning to expire: 

Can fly the prosy regions now and nigh 
(If ought is prosy to a poet's eye,) 
And join Archilles as he views the fall 
Of Hector dragged around the Trojan wall. 
With the relenting Greek is pleased again 
As he to Priam sends the noble slain: 

With Virgil laugh, as from the wave set free 
Half drowned Menoetes vomits up the sea. 
Immortal Fancy ! Vast is thy domain, 
Sensation high is thine without its pain ; 
Thou can'st enjoy all Croesus owns and more. 
Nor feel the care of all his heavy store. 



HAPPINESS 93 

And what is faith? — the faith that Ufts man- 
kind; 
Undying zeal ! 'Tis but a state of mind. 
Faith, Fancy, contemplation high, these three 
Are one in power and felicity; 
So spoke Activus in a serious vein, 
Contrasting with his life and love of gain. 

Publius Spurius I next did call, 

Who was the only villain of them all; 

A knave most eminent was he, who by 

His fawning friends was now promoted high 

And feasted grand on public spoils each day ; 

Stroking his beard he then began to say : 

The happy life is in a quiet vale 
Where cares are few and friendships never fail. 
It makes me glad to think of such a life 
Where honest toil is free from wrong and 

strife. 
Since he that in the rural quiet stays 
Sees not those wrongs that shock the urban 

gaze; 
Beholds no beasts in bliss, no knaves on high, 
Nor fashion's giddy whirl to daze the eye; 
Sees not the poor plod to his toil afar. 
While rogues loll in a coach or sumptuous car, 
Or mix spiced gossip with their sparkling wine, 
While half paid mothers shiver as they dine — 
Where purseproud coarseness sets a scorching 

pace 



94 HAPPINESS 

And decent pride is distanced in the race — 
"Hold! Hold," I cried, your arguments mean 

this: 
That in extremes of life resides no bliss — 
The very poor declare the rich are blest, 
The very rich think poverty is best. 
The public man dotes on a private life. 
While the obscure aspire to public strife. 
The dreamer dreams of tempest riven seas. 
While action longs for quiet port of ease; 
We then concede, while erring man is prone 
To reach extremes, he scarce can hope to own 
The boon of earthly bliss, the happy prize 
That as he fast pursues still faster flies : 
Till only in his dreams his rapture lies. 
The guests then did entreat m.e give my view 
Of the most happy course that men pursue. 
And this I did but begged them each to use 
Discretion of his own before he choose. 



II 



Were man a beast 'twere easy quite to say 
What were the blest, secure and happy way. 
It were enough to eive men clothes and bread 
E'n as the stolid ox that's housed and fed. 
But see ! Man is complex. His various needs 
Rise high above the beast that sleeps and feeds; 
E'n as a harp depends on many strings 
Each in accord, so life on many things 



9^-^ 



HAPPINESS 



Depends. Body and mind must be supplied, 
No part too much, and yet no part denied. 
Then much upon man's varying mood depends 
And use of means to gain most happy ends. 
Today may call for toil, tomorrow rest. 
This day a feast, the next a fast is best. 
Sharp action now, and contemplation next, 
Now peace, now happiness is being vexed. 
In self-love oft, now love for others had. 
Now bliss in mirth, now bliss in being sad ; 
In surging crowds, in solitude with age ; 
In converse with a parrot or a sage, 
Now rapture in the halls of art and pride. 
Now all alone upon a mountain side. 
In marts of trade to clash like steel gainst steel, 
Now on a river's bank to wind the reel. 
It is monotony of thought and view 
That leads to mis'ry and the mad house, too. 
Who then amid a thousand paths can say 
This path and this alone is man's right way? 

O ! powers Divine ! Ye spirits that preside 
O'er destinies or man, to me confide 
That word— that one brief word, if such there 

be. 
That is the sum of man's felicity ! 

Methinks the highest good of man is this ; 
Obedience, Obedience is bliss. 



HAPPINESS 95 

If every source of misery we trace 
Or pain, vice, poverty, disease, disgrace. 
Some one has broken law or great or small 
And on some head the penalty must fall. 
Should happiness abound through wide extent 
Some one some where has been obedient. 

The laws of God and Nature sacred be 
In origin, rewards and penalty. 
The Delphic seer that for Appollo spoke. 
Or the oracular Dodona Oak, 
Or holy hue of Urim's varied flash. 
Or law proclaimed on high mid thunder's crash 
More sacred or more potent cannot be 
Than common laws of health and decency. 
And should these common laws be disobeyed 
And men should be in fllth and vice arrayed 
Mark how disease and wide distress prevail 
And men to Heaven cry without avail — 
Yes. cry in vain so long as disobendient 
Though in cathedral vast the knee is bent. 

Go mark the law of love. God ne'er designed 
Him to beblest who will forget mankind. 
For though he rule some Caprae's sensuous 

isle 
He like Tiberius grows sad as vile, 
It is God's law writ everywhere that all 
Shall suffer when the weakest err or fall ; 
That liberty a partial boon shall be 
Till all the nations of the earth are free; 
And none shall be secure in health and ease 



HA'PPINESS 97 

While one is wronged by tyrant or disease, 
And plagues from alley up to avenue 
Will steal, and over realms and oceans too. 
Then from the mansion's gate mid gorgeous 

gloom 
The hearse proceeds with dark and nodding 

plume. 
And crepe full oft the palace door displays 
And sumptuous cerements cloud the fairest 

face; 
Such are the sympathetic links that bind 
The universal brotherhood — mankind. 

Again, there is the law of labor and of rest ; 
'Twas ne'er designed that idler should be blest, 
Nor, that the toiler toil severe and long 
Unvisited by rest and mirth and song. 

That men be taught, and fed and clothed and 
housed 
Is not enough : Mankind must be amused ; 
For tedium is bane for rich and poor ; 
Men crave the jolly maze or Terpsichore 
Or histrionic art in mimic fray, 
The hippodrome, bull fight or Passion Play, 
Street fairs, erotic tales, romantic grief, 
Severe field sports, ten thousand things in brief. 
That man from gnawing self may find relief : 
For they are few who can philosophize 
And with high thought dark phantoms exor- 
cise. 



98 HAPPINESS 

But as ascent is made in knowledge true 
Sports, recreation, aims, are loftier too. 

Thin savage and the gross blase (dull cad) 
In cock pit or prize ring alike are glad. 
Fat Nero and his slaves their plaudits blend 
Where beasts and martyrs horribly contend, 
While sports humane and blithesome oft en- 
gage 
Stout yeoman, manly saint or pallid sage. 

Mark, then, how men obey some rule of life, 
In civil walks or on the field of strife. 
Some soar, some drag along the heavy plain 
Or moved by right, or lust or hope of gain. 

The Spaniard will obey his code and fight 
Yet little seems to care if wrong or right. 
His moral purpose being vague, e'n so 
His aim is bad against his truth-armed foe. 
His purpose, his amusements base, he'll own 
His hero is a jockey or a clown, 
Or he that goads the placid bull to rage, 
( Fit sport for Spain or a barbaric age. ) 
In peace a helpless man with childish mind. 
In war obed'ent, purposeless and blind ; • 
On sea his vanquished ships are wreck and rust, 
On land his sordid legions bite the dust, 
And as his realm parts from his feeble hands 
Earth laughs at his intrigue and weak de- 
mands. 
Thus men transform as they obedient be 
To appetite or truth or liberty ; 



HAPPINESS 99 

The loftier the code that they obey 
The higher, nobler, stronger, happier they. 
Men's happiness takes form, we must conclude 
Just as their natures are refined or rude; 
And so their pleasures from obedience spring, 
Some with hyenas laugh and some with ser- 
aphs sing. 



L.of 



100 LINES TO SOUTHERN FRIENDS 



LINES TO SOUTHERN FRIENDS 

I've wandered far in sunny Southland 
Where gleam the cotton and the cane, 

Where mountains in their lordly grandeur 
Look down upon the hill and plain, 

Thence onward where the clear Wekiva 

Goes ever warbling to the sea, 
And by the bright shell tinted margin 

Of Tampa and the Manatee. 

And everywhere in all this region, 

In cabin or in palace grand, 
Or rudest cottage by the forest 

I've ever grasped a welcome hand. 

I've found the men were brave, the women 
Both gentle, true, and bright and fair, 

And if I met barbarian coarseness 
I will not tell you when or where. 

I will not name the coward villain 
Who strove to rob me in the night ; 

I will not name the boorish rustic 

Who sanctioned base and brutal might. 



LINES TO SOUTHERN FRIENDS lOI 

I let two foul names rot in silence 
Where they with miscreants belong : 

I'd sing the proud and worthy southron, 
Fit theme for plastic art and song. 

Mid violets and blooming roses 
That everywhere my senses greet 

I will not name the noxious fennel 
That only once I chanced to meet. 

To write a southern roll of honor 

'T would fill a book eacH one to name, 

But valor does not ask for mention, 
Nor virtue plead for place and fame. 

Then hail! thou glorious Southland, 
Resurgent from war's wreck and strife ; 

I glory in thy greater glory 

And in thy new and mighty life. 



I02 TO MAE 



TO MAE 

When last, My Friend, I saw your face 

Upon your features I could trace 

Perplexity and pain. I could 

Not understand why one so good 

Should be disquieted: Then I 

Did wish myself an angel sly 

That I might warble in your ear 

A soothing song of hope and cheer 

That like a panacea blest 

Would give you sure relief and rest — 

I wished myself a bird that I 
Could near your open window fly 
And sit and sing low and sweet and gay 
And charm each thought of gloom away. 

O ! were I skilled in alchemy 
rd dive down deep into the sea^ 
Or dig the old hard mountains through 
To find a remedy for you. 
A thousand tomes I'd search to find 
One thoughtful gem to cheer your mind : 
I'd chase for you the sunbeams rare 
And steal elixer from the air 
And add the essence of a star. 
These elements I would distil 
And a nice vial I would fill 



TO MAE 103 

To be for you a fitting cure, 
A pleasant remedy and sure. 

But says Hippocrates, the wise : 
There is befitting exercise 
To cure each ill that mortals bear 
And smooth the knitted brow of care. 

Ah ! then what labor could you find 
Just suited to your frame and mind ? 
With you each varied toil I'd test 
Until we found the one that's best. 
We'd walk the fields or ocean's shore. 
Or trim the sail or ply the oar. 
Or toss or strike the bounding ball, 
Or loiter where the shadows fall, 
Or speed on wheels with airy spring 
vSwift as a bird on noiseless wing; 
High Alpine realms we would explore ; 
View Rome's most ancient treasures o'er ; 
All toil for hand or mind or eye 
In new and ancient worlds we'd try, 
Till kindly Heaven at last reveals 
The exercise that surely heals. 

But if repose for you is best, 
Then go ,My Friend, and calmly rest : 
Go steal away and lightly doze 
Within the dreamland of repose 
While ministering angels place 
The wreath of health upon your face. 



104 



MY MOTHER'S HAND 

No other fingers could impart 

An unction like her own ; 
Such anodyne for head or heart 

Elsewhere was quite unknown. 

Right in the apostolic line 

Methinks my mother stood, 
If human touch can be divine 

Or mortals can be good. 

And I was not alone for there 

Were others not a few 
Who equally with me did share 

Her benediction too. 

Though small my mother's shapely hand 
'Twas strong with loving will ; 

Superior to rules and usage grand 
Was her maternal skill. 

The weight of four score years could not 

Impair affection's art, 
And in life's evening hour she wrought 

Nice tokens of her heart. 



MY MOTHER'S HAND 105 

Her handiwork, since she is gone, 

I reverent behold ; 
A masterpiece is every one 

Above the price of gold. 

Still larger toils were hers than these. 

And all performed full well ; 
What lives she built, what destinies 

Eternity will tell. 



I06 A HYMN 



A HYMN 

I do not ask that I shall bear 

No trials on my road, 
I only ask my God to share 

The burden of my load ; 
Then shall I find a joy in pain, 
Each cross a crown, each loss a gain. 

I do not ask on earth to live 

'Neath suns of cloudless ray; 
I only ask that God shall give 

A light to guide my way ; 
And then shall clouds be white as snow 
And death's dark vale with brightness glow. 

I'd only know of doctrines deep 

Save as Thy will I do : 
The riches thou for me dost keep 

I ask not now to know ; 
I'd learn, enjoy, obey, adore, 
Nor man nor angel could do more. 



NON IGNARA MALI MISERIS SUCCURRERE IO7 
DISCO — ^VIRGIL 



NON IGNARA MALI MISERIS SUC- 
CURRERE DISCO— VIRGIL 

Mantua's gentle sage, 
I thank you for this line 
To brighten all this page : 
And if a word of mine 
Will seem not here profane, 
I'll add: When'er I aid 
The poor and the distressed ; 
Bring hope to the dismayed, 
Set free the ones oppressed ; 
For every joy I give, 
A greater I receive. 



I08 MY UFE 



MY LIFE 

My life has been about 
As I have made it ; 

Or good or bad or glad or sad 
I know no other life 
For which I'd trade it. 

The world's old common cup 

Of pain and pleasure 
I take and drain, nor onoecomplain 

Of quality or time 

Or place or measure. 

Full many hours I've spent 
The crowd reviewing; 

The balcony the place for me 

To watch the crowd pass by, 
Their fads pursuing. 

Or with a book in hand 

I watch the ages 
Proceed along, a vivid throng 

Of patriots, heroes, lords, 

Plain men and sages. 

And yet who are the dead ? 
And who the living? 



MY UFE 109 

Some lives are found in books well bound ; 
The dead unburied prowl, 
To self all giving. 

Some live in noble deeds 

That perish never; 
And some prolong their lives in song ; 

With living men I'd choose 

To live forever. 



no TO JULIA 



TO JULIA 

I knew a message sure had tome 
Some hundred miles away : 
How could I tell 
My Southern Belle 

Would speak to me that day? 

Through open window, porch and door, 
Where oft I write and muse 
A voice was heard 
Like some sweet bird 

That sang to me the news. 

Beyond cold Reason's cumbrous realm, 
What wonders round us be, 
That Fancy's ear 
Alone can hear 

And Fancy's eye can see ! 



MEN LIKE STARS III 



MEN LIKE STARS 

Oft have I watched a planet wander far 
And silent on through Heaven, knight errant 
star; 

Once I observed twelve years a globe of fire 
Speeding the zodiacal course entire ; 

'Twas Jupiter, that orb of flaming gold 
That all who see with wonder still behold. 

And then long time I saw another one 
Complete his orbit round the central sun ; 

'Twas he that journeys on mid glowing rings 
Of flame, fit escort for celestial kings. 

E'n so some men we note as on they move 
Triumphant, brilliant like the course of Jove, 

And others less intense and yet as true, 
Like Saturn slowly move their orbit through 

Yet still mid satellites and rings of friends 
They journey ever 'till their journey ends. 

For not all rings and satellites are wrong 
Upon the earth, as heavenly orbs among; 

And if my heart rejoiced that there should be 
Such steadfastness and god-like certainty 

Among the comic orbs so faint and far. 
In whirling planet or in moveless star. 

Not less the ecstacy of joy I knew 
That men could be as lofty and as true ; 

Like planets bright to lure the gaze of all, 
Or local stars unnamed and twinkling small. 



112 GREATNESS 



GREATNESS 



There's many would esteem it great to be 
Oft in the pubic gaze. To them 'tis fame 
To stand upon some trifling eminence 
Where eyes innumerable vaguely see : 
As if some snarly oak seen on a hill 
Should boast himself the greatest of the trees ; 
Or clumsy marble bust within a hall 
Grow vain where many pass and each bestows 
A glance or crude remark while those who most 
Impulsive are implant a kiss, or place 
A crown upon the unresponsive brow, 
The verdict of the injudicious throng. 

It is enough for these to see a name 
Enrolled as Honorable, this or that, 
Or Senator or Judge or Duke or Count 
Or millionaire, while all unmindful of 
What coarseness, what rank rags, what leprosy 
Oft hide beneath a tinsel title, both 
In halls of state and in the social world. 

But greatness is far more than name or fame, 
The great is he who does some worthy deed. 
Or speaks some helpful word in cheerful tone, 
— A cordial to those in agony 
Of woe, a cup for those athirst, or 'tis 
The throwing of a cable o'er the sea, 
Or girdling the arduous globe with steel 



GREATNESS II3 

For the commodious car with lightning speed 
To pass o'er mountains, plains and continents. 

'Tis great to backward hurl your country's 
foes, 
Or if that foe be armed men or vice 
And ignorance unarmed, the deadliest foes 
Of all because the tools of villainy. 
'Tis great to train the youthful mob for times 
Severe. Or in the ministries of home 
Forge, school and fireside all unsung, unknown 
Where is no boom of cannon or the cheer 
Of comradeship, or promise of reward. 

The world remembers benefactors, though 

Not all alike. For some are monuments 

After a life amid tremendous cheers, 

For some are curses, execrations deep ; ^ 

For some a silent, reverent regard. 

As for that old Athenian god unknown. 

O ever did you wake at midnight on 
The storm struck deep, when shrouds and rig- 
ging sang 
The song of death, and the deep trough between 
The seas might instant be your grave, have you 
Then thought of him who at the helm stood 

brave 
And calm mid hurricanes of death, and in 
The morning you have hasted forth to take 



114 GREATNESS 

The valiant seaman by the hand, when lo ! 
Another held the wheel who calmly said : 
The midnight pilot sleeps and takes his rest. 
Such is the world. When mortals wake to cheer 
Their benefactors, they are gone — perchance 
To take an endless rest — Hail ! hail ! you man 
Down deep within the hold of that swift bark, 
Pride of the sea ; within your hot sphere you 
Are great ; and you the midnight pilot true 
Are great. And you, my worthy friends, who 

in 
The garden of the mind teach children how 
To rule the world. You now are guiding great 
Affairs. A million men there are in this 
Broad land who could direct affairs of state. 
And do direct such high concerns each day. 
'Tis easier to rule a state than rule 
A mob of boys and girls. 'Tis easier 
To rule trained armies than to train them squad 
By squad intractable of foot and eye. 

Hail ! hail ! ye myraids who ready are 
To do the noble deed ; for ye today 
Without the stimulus of praise or gold 
Are faithful in your calm but mighty sphere. 

A Hobson wins applause and kisses too 
For his bold deed, grand though imperfect still, 
Yet be it known there were four thousand men 
Who said : Send rne and my good comrades 

here ; 
We'll sink the Merrimac and bottle up 



GREATNESS 115 

The Spaniard if you choose though shell fall 

round 
From Morro hurled as thick as summer rain. 

Who then shall say that one alone was brave ? 
And yet the crowd with wide expanded mouth 
Pours inarticulate hussas for one 
Alone ; and the pleibean lips come near 
With noxious kiss and breath malodorous. 
See then what dangers those four thousand 

men 
Escaped ! How blessed are the great unknown ! 
And some will ask: Who was the greatest 

man 
Of that great century that has just gone? 
Both vague and arduous the question is, 
For there is none but God can tell who most 
Upbuilt the age with masonry of thought 
Or life. For mark you how some forces work 
Below the surface like the coral mite 
That silently upbuilds fair continents. 
Go mark you how that great occasions rise 
And lift to eminence small men just as 
Upheaving mountains lift the hazel high 
Above the mighty oak or towering pine, 

Mark how a poet sings to fame the charge 
Of a brigade, a noble charge, 'tis true, 
And yet, alas ! by force and not by choice 
They died in a Crimean strife as vain 
And useless as the bickering brawls of fools, 
For Balaklava did involve no high 



Il6 GREATNESS 

And mighty principle of human weal — 

No more do mortals know who are the great 
Than know the working of the hand of God ; 
The process that evolves eternal stars 
To jewel fair the mystic brow of Heaven, 
Or other orbs to roam in blackest night, 
Eternally to see and yet unseen, 
Dark worlds that hold bright hosts in even 

scale. 
The balance of power in God's empire vast. 
And still do mortal men amuse their minds 
Comparing star with star, as idly as 
The children playing in the twilight hour 
And greeting loud the foremost orbs of night. 

So let it be ; 'Twill harmlessly amuse 
Grown men and blinking age and childhood 
too. 



TO MISS E — A, A SOUTHERN BELLE II7 



TO MISS E— A, A SOUTHERN BELLE 

With the great jolly world you've been 

And also with the wits; 
Their impress on your face is seen 

For on your brow there sits 
Intelligence as well as grace 

To add full glory to your face. 
But whence those native charms I see ? 
My fancy dares the mystery; 
'Tis this; you grow serene and gay 

Like realms of flowers fair; 
Mid avenues of blooming spray 

You steal the sunshine there; 
Then smilingly you oft behold 

Pinks and carnations too. 
And as a thief steals sums of gold 

You steal each rosy hue. 
This nice possession you dispose 
Upon your cheeks of blushing rose, 
Your fetching way doth place I know 
The lily's whiteness on your brow. 

Whence come you by those flashing eyes 

Of mystery and light? 
Ah yes ! you've watched the starry skies 

And caught the flash of night. 



Il8 TO MISS E — A, A SOUTHERN BELLE 

I know you oft have seen the long 

Gray mosses and have walked among 

Them as they curve to every breeze 

In grace dependent from the trees ; 

And there youVe caught that conq'ring sway 

That bends, yet clings to lofty stay. 

Unconscious imitatior?s stealth 

Has brought you much of beauty's wealth, 

And yet you consciously much more 

Have added to vour wondrous store. 



THE REFORMER Il9 



THE REFORMER 

The world needs the Reformer, though 

His enemies should hurl 
At him the bat, or bind him to 

The stake, where with the whirl 
Of smoke and flame his spirit fljss 

Abroad and lives and multiplies. 

Full well the smooth hard tyrant knows 
The rude reformer by his clothes, 
Or voice pitched in a lofty key. 
His trousers bagging at the knee. 
His glistening coat of ancient date 
Befitting nothing but his gait ; 
His bristling hair to breezes spread 
E'n like the thoughts within his head. 

But should the bold reformer be 
In linen white and purple fine. 

His face a joy for all to see, 
And know the worth of mine and thine. 
His voice persuasive, sweet and low, 
The tyrant still would hate him, though. 
And picture him in crimson hue 
Of hatred, fear and ridicule. 
The hue that fires the common fool 



lao THE REFORMER 

To persecutions gloomy war, 
A hatred urged by men afar, 
Who while they seemingly deplore 
The strife — urge on to it the more. 

The mitre and the gown. 

The ermine and the crown 

Will hail reform's auspicious day 

When others have first smoothed the way. 

The fearless prophet first must cry, 
The valiant knight must strike or die, 
The statesm?ui then with master mind 
All into form must shape and bind; 
When this achievement tyrants see 
They smile and bend the supple knee. 

Maizzini in the wilderness 
Doth voice sad Italy's distress; 
Fierce Garibaldi leads the van 
Of mad Palermo's waiting clan, 
A nation from her prison flies, 
Fair Freedom lives, oppression dies, 
While sage Cavour shapes all things then. 
And crowned heads bow and say, Amen ! 

But why proclaim a dread alarm 
'Gainst seeming light and trivial harm, 
Or hurl 'gainst mountain peaks of wrong 
A fusilade of words and song? 



THE REFORMER 121 

We know that mountains have been moved 
And rivers been turned from their course 

And oft the hght has heavy proved; 

The trivial a mighty force, 
And brave men will the past, exceed 
However mighty was the deed — 
And grander battles yet be won 
Than Waterloo or Marathon. 

All this can the Reformer see 

By faith that grasps things yet to be. 

But more than this, he also sees 

Man's baser possibilities; 

How men pursuing things that please, 

Lust, opulence or fame or ease 

Grow blind to wrongs and dangers near. 

Alive to fortune dead to fear ; 

As if through some wide jungle deep, 

Where Cobras coil and vipers creep 

One should pursue with ardent eye 

A tiger or a butterfly 

xA.nd so intent the quest should be 

That naught of danger can he see, 

So lest the Cobra slay him there. 

There's need of one to cry, beware. 

There's need of the Reformer in 
The State. If there be greater sin 
'ihan doing wrong, 'tis suff'ring wrong 
Without a protest or a blow : 



122 THE REFORMER 

A yielding to abuses long 

And cringing to a tyrant low. 
Sometimes the tyrant is a thing 
In human form, a would-be king 
Whom slaves permit awhile to reign 
Until they rouse and with a chain 
Bind fast his wrists and he is scourged 
With rankling links himself had forged. 

Or if that tyrant be 
A cruel custom long- endured, 

Where men are taught to see 
No wrong in things not to be cured. 
There's need that one arise, defy 
And overthrow the wrong or die, 
And with brave blood infect the air 
To breed rebellion 'gainst despair. 

There's mighty need the church within 
That some rebuke abuse and sin 

And designate the foe 
That like malaria and moles 

Moves brazen, dark or low 
To hurt or ruin simple souls. 

There's need that one no longer ring 

The name of class or clan 
But like the prophet to the king 

Shall say, thou art the man. 
There's need upon that glittering realm 



THE REFORMER 123 

That's called society, 
Where cowards often hold the helm 

Upon a dangerous sea, 
And fearing lest the waves should whelm 

They run into a shallow bay 
A useless thing to be. 
All dead and rotting to decay ; 
There's need of one to bravely steer 
To wide, wide seas from breakers clear 
To prosperous ports grandly to speed, 
Enriching all and all to lead. 
There is no class, nor age, nor race. 
No favored nation, clime or place. 
Nor fertile land unctuous and low. 
Nor cold and thin breeze swept plateau 
That does not need the warning cry: 
Arouse, beware, resist or die. 



124 '^HE SPECTRAL GUARD 



THE SPECTRAL GUARD 

I heard of raki sh argosies 
That robbed the Spanish main, 

Then sank in war or hurricane 
Never to rise again. 

I heard of these until I dreamed 

Of countless bags of gold 
That useless lie down in the deep, 

In many a vessel's hold. 

What mighty things would I achieve 
Should I these treasures raise; 

What institutions would I build 
To speak for aye my praise! 

I dreamed I had a magic boat 

To pierce the hidden wave, 
And standing at the helm there was 

A pilot wise and brave. 

Away we launch, and soon we saw, 

'Mid southern oceans fair, 
Sweet mermaids with their combs of pearl 

Smile as they combed their hair. 



THE SPECTRAL GUARD 1 25 

And silently they beckoned us 

Our journey to refrain, 
But smiles and wiles and dangers dark 

Alike on use were vain. 

Still on and on we plunge far down 

Where night and silence be; 
Our lamps betrayed the dead that hide 

In trenches of the sea. 

No living forms we saw, for all 

Was cold ; the very waves 
All motionless and black as night 

Were resting in their graes. 

Huge monsters and primeval men 

Their ancient forms display, 
For countless years they are untouched 

By process of decay. 

In stout Phonecian armor some. 

And others clad in fur. 
In the rude boats in which they sank 

Their aitless weapons were. 

We saw the ancient galleons, 

Of structure strange, antique. 
Four decked and bulwarked like a fort 

And castled at the beak. 



126 THE SPECTRAL GUARD 

Within were men in armor clad, 

Their clammy fingers hold 
Old guns, machetes, rusty swords, 

And some clutch bags of gold. 

When forth my hand I thrust to take 

These treasures of the dead, 
A spectral form stood up in arms. 

Let these alone, he said. 

This wealth of ocean's darksome vault 

Has done enough of wrong ; 
Now let it plate the dreamer's dream 

Or gild his airy song. 

Leave gold, leave arms, and dead men too ; 

They're harmless here with me ; 
The world has now enough of each. 

Nor needs to rob the sea. 

I was a pirate once, and now 

I'm doomed forever more 
Mid rayless channels of the deep 

To guard this sunken store. 

Farewell! no more ye need to know; 

Ye further seek in vain. 
Nor dream nor magic art shall drag 

These treasures from the main. 



THE SPECTRAL GUARD 12/ 

Adieu! accursed soul, I cried, 

Your task befits your d oom ; 
Then swift our course we steer away 

From gold's accursed tomb. 

I cannot now believe, as some 

Philosophers declare, 
That things dissolve in ocean's wave 

As snow in summer air. 

I cannot now believe that all 

Was fancy's idle scheme, 
Nor that the Specter's words were false, 

Deceiving as a dream. 



128 THE DERELICT 



THE DERELICT 

They christened her a dulcet name 

With fragrant wine, 
And launched her with a glad acclaim 

Upon the brine; 
A handsome craft, sea worthy too, 
Swift winged, from sea to sea she flew, 
The pride of all her jolly crew. 

In that impassioned, tropic clime 

Where storms arise, 
Brewed in one awful moment's time 

From cloudless skies 
Her crew all went to sleep, and lo ! 
The storm shook them awake, and now 
Their unmanned ship drifts to and fro ; 

The sport of every tide and gale, 

Dark and alone. 
The dread of all who seaward sail 

The pride of none ; 
I pause ; O, would you care to be, 
A drifting, dreadful entity? 
A derelict upon life's sea ? 



god's works and man's compared 129 

GOD^S WORKS AND MAN'S COMPARED 
I 

*YoM capitol that lifts on high 
Its dome to mingle with the sky ; 
A work that fills the raptured gaze 
With tears; the tears that homage pays 
To genius : yet what is all compared 
To Heaven's dome that God hath reared ; 
By day lit with the sun, by night 
Aflame with glorious stars of light ? 

II 

t Yon marble shaft that lonely stands, 
The loftiest work of human hands, 
His fair name to commemorate 
Whose life was great to make men great, 
A name like that shaft high and white, 
And yet how mean this shaft in height 
With peaks and cliffs that mock all time 
And storm, God's masonry sublime ! 

Ill 

t Afar behold those roofethat shine 
Above thought's Pantheon, arts' shrine. 



130 god's works and man's cx>mpared 

To lure the mind and fix the gaze, 
The masterpiece of modern days, 
And yet how plain compared with all 
This frame the universe we call, 
Where this bright world is but a mote 
Of dust in God's own house afloat. 



IV 



Yet all these works do praise the man 
Who builds aloft the best he can ; 
Dome, shaft and fane of lore and art 
Applaud man's mind and hand and heart 
Aspiring high above the clod 
And building as a son of God, 
And Heaven on achievement smiled, 
The Father owns the worthy child. 

* National Capitol. f Washington Monument. 

X National Library. 



MY MUSE 131 



MY MUSE 

The world of wealth and honor came 

To lure me from my muse, 
And talked of pride and place and fame 

With arguments profuse, 
But to the world I made reply : 

Let others take these toys 
Whose hearts desire them more than I. 

The church did offer vestments fair 

And jeweled sickle bright 
That I might reap a har\xst rare 

When fields were waving white ; 
But I replied — There's hundreds would 

Delighted reap these fields 
And I am willing that they should. 

Nor wealth, nor ease nor halls of pride 
Shall lure me from my muse ; 

Far from this mortal strife Til bide 
Retirement to choose, 

E'n like that bird that only sings 
Mid leafy boughs unseen 

I'll strike my harps concordant strings. 



132 MY MUSE 

Nor would I here escape all care; 

I'd help mankind the more, 

I would with greater skill prepare 

For men a better store ; 
Nor hope to find reward a present bliss, 

For I must patient wait 
For other times and scenes than this. 



THE COLLIER AND THE SAILOR. 1 33 



THE COLLIER AND THE SAILOR. 

See Stoops, the toiler under ground 
Where smoke and dangers dense abound; 
His lamp's small ray about him cast 
Gives light enough to dig and blast ; 
Within his workshop small and grim 
The day and night are one to him, 
Mid summer heat or winter's snows 
One even clime his dark realm knows. 

Yet Stoops, is quite content, nor would 
Exchange his work shop if he could. 
With co^i black face he walks the streets 
Gay as the ogling crowd he meets, 
For he by honest toil is made 
A comrade in a useful trade. 

Full many homes he lights and warms 
And nerves with fire the nation's arms 
He, freeing earth's long pent up fires, 
The arteries of trade inspires. 
The chemic ray with fervent glow 
That shown a million years ago 
Thrown from the youthful, ardent sun 
Is crystalized in carbon dun 
And now by Stoop's brave skill set free 



134 'THE COI<LIER AND THE SAILOR 

Flames forth in blessed ministry, 
Obscure his lamp deep in the mine 
But far away its light doth shine. 

But how unlike in every part 
The sailor's realm, the sailors art ; 
A lamp is not enough for him 
But sun and moon and stars of glim; 
No air conveyed by fan and shaft 
But gales of every clime are quaffed; 
And bright and active is his realm 
As is the sea foam round his helm. 

Free as a bird that sails the skies 

From clime to clime the sailor flies, 

He feels the iceberg's chilly breeze 

Then spreads white wings for sunny seas; 

Yet is Jack Tar a better man 

Than Stoops with pick and powder can ? 

Is Jack a finer man in port? 

Is he more glad in toil or sport ? 

Alas ! poor Jack inferior is 
To many fortunes that are his, 
While he that toils within the mine 
Where light and hope but feebly shine, 
By force of will or good intent 
Improves his dark environment ; 
Not fortunes sun can make a man 
Nor darkness hide a noble plan. 



MANII.A AND SANTIAGO I35 



MANILA AND SANTIAGO 

If in these days the bard aspire 

To sing the dread leviathan of war 

With hide of steel and breath of fire 

And enginry to hurl afar 

The thunderbolt and earthquake dire 

To whelm a nation in an hour 

And sweep from seas near and remote 

The curse of old Castilian power, 

Well might the bard attune his note 

To deeds sublime where valor led 

To vic'try on Manila bay, 

Or where brave Sampson's chosen men 

By Santiago's lofty shore 

Repeat Manila's marvelous day ; 

But pause — There is no mortal pen 

Could tell a tale so like the lore 

Of wars celestial, fierce and fell 

When angered Heaven cast out hell. 

As if the rage of men who saw 
Down trampled right and outraged law; 
Rien zi's soul that seeming failed 
And that of Lopez, Placido, 
Toussaint, the brothers Maceo ; 



136 MANILA AND SANTIAGO 

Those who in the Virginius sailed 

And hosts with graves and names scarce known 

From Yara's grimal martyr down; 

These all had fiercely blent in one 

As atoms kindred atoms own 

And made a cloud that first was small 

Then whirling formed a mad cyclone 

That on Montejo's fleet did fall 

To instant rend and wreck and blast 

And make the nations stand aghast ; 

— Then suddenly the storm in air 

Did lift and to the eastward sped 

Some thousand leagues and fell just where 

'Twas fit that retribution red 

Avenge the sons of liberty 

Who on this self-same shore had bled 

By Santiago's tropic sea "^ 

Where furious vengeance pours the rain 

Of thund'ring iron o'er the main ; 

Cervera's fleet in ruin lies 

A nation lives, oppression dies. 

*Cervera's fleet was destroyed in sight of the 
spot where had been murdered the patriotic 
crew of the Virginius. 



GRUMBLERS I37 



GRUMBLERS 



I once did dream that grumblers all 
Were banished to a storm swept isle, 

Where they could hear the constant call 
Of birds complaining all the while 

And winds and waves that roar 

And shriek and wail forever more. 

There were no heroes there to blame, 
No virtues there to move a sneer. 

No good to call some other name, 
No beauty chaste on which to leer, 

No music to disdain, 

No joyousness to give them pain. 

And they did ever meet and pass 
And scowl upon no genial face 

But saw themselves as in a glass, 
And felt such loathing of their race 

They vainly sought to fly 

And for relief they chose to die. 

In hearing of the ceaseless surge 
They stay in their unquiet graves ; 

The birds complain their fitting dirge 
Responsive to the winds and waves ; 

'Tis just — So let them pass, 

I woke. It was a dream, alas! 



138 GLOBE TROTTERS 



GLOBE TROTTERS 

They wander round and round the world 

In vain pursuit, 
Nor gather hke the bee the nectar of 

True wisdom's fruit. 

Slabtown, a wood, a desert bare 

Are wise men's schools. 
But all the realm's from Ind to Albion 

Are blank to fools — 

For what is art or landscape wide, 

Or thoughts in ink 
To eyes that roll too swift to see and minds 
Too slow to think. 

Oh wretched clan that ever flies 

In rasping pace. 
To sadden all save common carriers 

And Boniface. 

If you these well dressed vagabonds 

Should chance to meet, 
You'll vow as you have never vowed before 

That home is sweet. 



A RECIPE 139 



A RECIPE 

Of books with startling incident and plot 

We have a boundless feast. 
And still man's mighty hunger ceases not 

But only is increased. 

This greed is an old, old disease ; its cure 

Would kill the patient dead 
And like some chronic parasite impure 

The ailment must be fed. 

So take a ghost, a wrong, a mystery, 
A lust's unlawful flame, 
A pessimistic view of things that be, 
A town with pleasing name, 

A girl, a lover by a rival vexed, 

An insult and a blow, 
A challenge and the click of steel, and next — 

Suspense a day or two. 

An earthquake dire, a pest, a thunder storm, 

An ancient wooden chest, 
The sea, the mountains dark, a hidden form 

In midnight darkness dressed. 



140 A RECIPE 

A freak, a fool, or a religious whim 

(These always can be had,) 
A smart disguise or a disaster grim, 

A light and social "fad," 

A struggle long in even balance, but 

A perilous escape ; 
Eccentric characters in hall or hut, 

The rich or proud in crepe. 

Place these and more within a box and when 

You draw one from the lot 
A chapter write on every one and then 

Unite all with a plot. 

But Fancy's touch of life all things must blend 

And give a beating heart. 
And over this unreal realm extend 

The magic of her art. 

For man is like a child and he doth need 

The world that only seems ; 
For many a life is hard and blank indeed 

And finds relief in dreams. 

One story done repeat the deal and tell 

Another startling tale^-; 
Such themes and combinations blended well . . 

Are never known to fail. 



DISCONTENT 14I 



DISCONTENT. 

High on the shore one morn I stood 

And looked across the sea ; 
Glad danced the wide and silver tide, 

While voices called to me : 

Come out, come out, upon the wave 
Where grand and fair are blent ; 
The seaman's life is noble strife 
His toil benefic ent. 

At eve I walked the quarter deck 
And saw the beauteous strand; 

A palace fair, each dwelling there. 
The hills were fairyland. 

A voice then spoke just as before : 

Fly from the cruel sea; 
The tyrant wave will you enslave, 

The land is only free. 

Such is the life of restless man; 

Some other sphere is best, 
Not now nor here, but in some sphere 

Remote must he be blest. 



142 SHE TOLD ME HER LOVE 



SHE TOLD ME HER LOVE. 

She told me her love with her eyes, 

For speech is seeming; 
She told me her love with her sighs, 

While words were dreaming. 

Frail is the Saxon or the Greek, 

And French is weaker; 
When my dear lady's eye and cheek 

Become the speaker. 



CRITO 143 



CRITO 

When Crito had long known the strife 
That comes along with public life 
He gladly said : While I admit 
That storm and struggle well befit^ 
All those who on the wide seas sail 
And find their fortune a gale ; 
As for myself, I've had enough 
Of sailing dangerous and rough ; 
ril leave tempestuous affairs 
And put in port for some repairs. 

Then a snug harbor Crito chose, 
A thousand acres, more or less ; 
With iron walls did then enclose. 

His fine suburban wilderness. 

A swinging cot beneath a pine 
Served as a resting place and shrine 
Where he would read both books and news 
And talk with friends or silent muse . 

Sometimes to Heaven his prayers would rise 
By way of mental exercise 
And if there came some other good, 
Crito was willing that there should. 

Oft in his garden Crito found 



144 CRITO 

While walking barefoot on the ground 
Sweet rest and life renewing force 
Since earth is life's electric source 
And must be touched with the bare feet 
To make the circuit all complete. 
His mansion built of logs of wood 
South of a sheltring forest stood, 
From north winds guarded by the trees, 
But welcoming the southern breeze. 

Six rooms there were all in a line, 
A porch in front of each where twine 
The clematis and eglentine, 
But dearer far than flowers could be 
Were Crito's wife and children three. 

Now Crito with a skill his own 
Restored Queen Nature to her throne ; 
Abroad unbounded roamed the deer, 
Wild fowl and song bird nested near; 
The reedy pond with flashing wing 
They strike or in the grove they sing ; 
Wild oxen from the western plains 
Adorned his unsubdued domains ; 

But these he kept so oft in view 
They'd lick his outstretched hand. 

But strangers they would swift pursue 
Across the fleeing land; 
Their bending horns, mighty and white, 
Were signal quite enough for flight. 



CRITO 145 

His family with joy had seen 
How Crito grew fat and serene, 
And so there came content 
To banish banishment. 

Some of his early friends now said ; 
Poor Crito, once so live is dead 
And buried far within a wood 
Or ghostlike haunts the solitude. 

Others declared it their belief 
That stung by some unholy grief 
Or guilt he'd sought man's gaze to shun 
And so he chose to be alone. 

So 'twas agreed that two 
His bravest friends should go, 
Henri and gallant Florian 
And find the melancholy man . 

'Twas dewy morn in early May 

They hastened out, yet with delay 

In getting through the lines 

That marked his kingdom's sharp confines, 

Where twelve barbed wires before them spread 

A horrid wall bristling and dread. 

How this was scaled their flight well shows 
In bleeding hands and shredded clothes. 
Just as they reach the meadow side, 
An angry ox amazed they spied. 



146 CRITO 

With horns advanced and pawing feet 

He challenged them in war to meet ; 

At once the challenge they declined 

And sped them through the sheltring wood 

With flying feet and angry mind, 

Till by Dan Crito's door they stood. 

CRITO. 

Welcome ! Good Friends, welcome ! he said, 
Yours are my wilderness and shed. 
You are my friends, yes friends indeed, . 
Dangers and toils you do not heed; 
A wilderness you dare explore 
That you may reach my rustic door ; 

But what has torn your clothes ? Was it 
The antlered fool that in a fit 
Of humor oft his horns extends 
To try the friendship of my friends ? 
Perchance my herd that still retains 
The spirit of the western plains 
Has dared you meet in mortal strife 
To break the monotone of life? 

HENRI. 

Not so. It was your savage fence 
That like your humor and your sense 
Is barbed, impales or rends. 
To wound or kill your friends 



CRITO 147 

Who dare explore these bogs and woods 
Where prowl your kindred multitudes. 

CRITO. 

I'm glad an angry wind 
Has stirred your foggy mind. 
Soon will the dark mists clear away 
And you will see the truth of day . 

I've marked your dangerous career 
In city marts as well as here ; 
What hazards you have made 
Upon the sea of trade, 
Where pirates plundered you, 
Yourself a pirate too, 
And yet no doubt some ships sailed home 
And profits vast to you have come, 
And still you own a spirit rife 
For enterprises new, and strife. 
The dangers you have this day dared 
Are only chaff with those compared. 
'Tis here you stand on real ground, 
'Tis friends, not flatterers you've found ; 
No bonfires blaze at your defeat, 
'Tis welcome and not jeers you meet. 

O'er bristling walls you bravely go. 
With skill you shun the antlered foe. 
To nothing does your valor yield : 
You are the masters of the field. 



148 CRITO 

HENRI. 

Upon the sea of trade 

You once yourself W2.i known, -^''-^-' 

Its Saragosa calms, 

Its tempest and simoon 
You dared, and fortune was your gain, 

You pirate of the Spanish main. 

Whence came you by these forests here, 
These lakes of fowl, these parks of deer? 

Not flatterers, but friends, come we 
Our Crito's face once more to see. 

CRITO. 

Your coarse, hard frankness paves the way 
For harder words that I may say. 

You see yon murky wreath of smoke 
That tarnishes the air 
Above your city's fuming realm 

Of virtue, vice and care ? 
Just so will calumny arise 
'Gainst men who live in loftier skies. 
But smoke oft joins the clouds and forms 
A wreath that breaks in fiercest storms. 
And some are struck by bolts of fire 
And some in whirling winds expire 

But most a vantage gain 

From storm-purged air and rain. 
Your smudgy calumnies 



CRITO ^ 149 

Return upon your head in wrath 
And bolts will smite you sure, 
Somewhere along the storm's wild path. 
My roof is broad, but is not broad 

Enough to shield a sland'rous word, 
These wilds a refuge be, but not 

For evil man or beast or bird. 

Here Crito faithfully explained 

How those who most by him had gained 

Had most maligned and robbed him too. 

This was his story told in few, 

Nor need I now to tell it you. 

And then he said : 'Tis noon; 

To yonder shade let us repair 

The simple midday meal 

Beside the bubbling spring to share. 

Now their discussion lighter grew 

To give each dish a flavor new. 

With merry talk and many a jest 

They slowly eat with healthful zest ; 

While Edith fair of form and face, 

Presided with a queenly grace. 

CRITO. 

You see yon bird with ebon wings 
And yellow form, that as it sings 
In swift and undulating flight, 
Seems like a golden shaft of light? 



150 CRITO 

Who'll tell me why that bird displays 
Such gorgeous hues in summer days, 
While in dark winter's sombre reign 
His dress is quite severe and plain? 

FLORIAN. 

The answer to your que ry I 

Somehow, somewhere have heard; 

Doubt me and I to you reply ; 
'Twas told me by a bird. 

A brave young man did once receive 

A vest all barred with gold ; 
A gift bestowed where more was owed 

For courage true and bold. 

The robe was bright with many pearls 
And diamonds here and there, 

And every fold showed threads of gold 
Inwrought with skill and care. 

But never would he wear his vest, 

But kept it cautious hid : 
Why' none could guess, perchance unless, 

His modesty forbid. 

Soon envy said he never wore 

His gift a single day. 
For he one morn its gems had shorn 

And bartered them away. 



CRITO 151 

And if he would but show his coat 

They'd find it all disgraced, 
With pearls of glass, and gems, alas! 

All made of worthless paste. 

He silent heard these envious tales 

With deeply-aching pain, 
And wondered why base men should lie 

When none could gather gain. 

So from its ward he took the coat, 

The painful gift to view : 
No gems bright shown, for they were gone 

And now the tale seemed true. 

And so distressed was he,Jie swore 

Swift vengeance in his mind 
And cautiously employed a spy, 

The diamond thief to find. 

Few days escaped when both the rogue 

And diamonds too, were found, 
And then the thief, in bitter grief, 

Was in a prison bound. 

This was the clue in this bad case, 

(As rogues should careful note) 
Thief was the man who first began 

To lie about the coat. 



152 CRITO 

And many told the villain's tale, 

As if in half belief, 
And thus became, th ough not in name, 

The partners of the thief. 

Now Edwin to the market went 

With baskets large and fine, 
And these filled he full as could be 

With tongues and ears of swine. 

With these he made a pudding large 
That weighed the table down, 

Then his behests brought in his guests 
From country and from town. 

The dish was seasoned strong and well 

With gall and bitter rue, 
So when each guest would take a taste 

His look was bitter too. 

Now all were silent and amazed 

As much as guests dare be ; 
First Edwin spake, silence to break 

And cold and calm spake he: 

Just now you claimed to be my friends ; 

Your friendship is a cheat ; 
Your willing ear false tales would hear, 

Which you in turn repeat. 



CRITO 153 

Behold how bitter is the dish this day 

Your tongues have tasted well ; 
More bitter still the tongue that will 

An envious story tell. 

Then they confused with shame retire 

While each one trembling hears 
Each whisper speak, and wild winds eke 

Of bitter tongues and ears. 

Then Edwin took his cause of pain 

Unto the market square, 
And when the throng that passed along 

Had gathered round him there ; 

He sternly cried : No foe of mine 

Is worthy of this gown. 
Nor would I see a friend to me 

Wear sorrows like my own. 

While hunting once some thieves laid wait 

To rob and leave me dead : 
I paused to hear a song bird near 

Meanwhile the thieves had fled. 

False friends did plot against my life 

And ^eainst the name I bear; 
A finch did save me from the grave, 

The finch this vest shall wear. 



154 CRITO 

In summer's gay and joyous time 

This hue will suit him well : 
My cause of pain shall be his gain 

And of my rescue tell. 

Then Edwin held aloft the vest ; 

In air it melts away ; 
And since that hour in summer bower 

The finch dons vestments gay. 

CRITO. 

Your legend of the finch has quite 
Brought all my story to the light. 
The men who profited by me 
Are they that sought my injury. 
When envy lodges in the heart 
Then grace and gratitude depart. 
They saw my fortune swift advance 
Where they had lost the golden chance 
And then they darkly whispered round 
(For words like poisoned arrows wound,) 
That I by fraud had made my gains 
And that my name was dark with stains. 
All this they said without excuse 
Or hope of profit, trust or use. 

Come daughter Edith, sing a song 
Of that brown bird whose trill 

Delights the noon day hours long 
When all beside are still. 



CRITO 155 

Then Edith steps behind a screen 
And like the thrush, she sings unseen. 
When calls the early light 

Bold robin first replies, 
Yet cautiously and low sings he 
And various notes he tries. 
(Here Edith whistles the notes of the robin.) 
The wood thrush now grows bold 

And trills his early song; 
There's none to me more dear than he 
In all the tuneful throng. 
(Here Edith mimics the cadence of the wood 
thrush.) 
When noon drives all to shade 

One only song is heard; 
With throbbing hush, you'll hear the 
thrush 
But cannot see the bird. 
(Whistles again.) 

At morn, at noon, at night 

He sings still out of view ; 
The reason why he is so shy 
I never, never knew. 
(Whistles again the notes of the wood thrush. V 

The guests retire : their course they bend 
Where woods are deep and streamlets wend 
And soon the mighty city's roar 
Grates deeper, harsher than before : 
Again they feel the throbbing heart 



156 CRITO 

Of jarring street and busy mart. 

Above the crash by commerce made, 

Above the mighty hum of trade, 

Did Florian hear the wood thrush sing, 

For contrasts in the soul will spring 

Where love is. Inarticulate 

Sounds, and nerve-racking disc ords grate 

In vain. He heard that music still 

As Edith hid from view would trill 

Each pleasing note until they fill 

The vancant chambers of his soul 

With love's all conquering control. 

And Florian brave to Edith seems 
The bright fulfillment of her dreams. 
And more than all her lovers he 

Most manly seemed and nobly bold 
(And many lovers gay had she,) 

For in the story of the finch he told 
His knowledge of the plan to lame 
Her father's family and fame. 

'Tis here the story ends. The rest 
I leave by readers to be guessed. 

For Love is greater than the great, 
Than name, position, or estate. 
Than death, than pride or pedigree, 
And so what'er the drama be, 
What'er the acts along the way, 
Let love, great love conclude the play. 



VIA SACRA 157 



VIA SACRA 



In many types the truth portray? 

Man's fallen state and erring ways. 

'Tis said that man is lost and blind, 

Of stony heart and fleshly mind, 

A captive bound in chains and sold, 

A wand'ring sheep far from the fold, 

A prodigal with swine to feed, 

A leper all unclean ; a reed 

Bowed by the gale, a summer leaf, 

A blade of grass as frail as brief, 

A man diseased, sick and impure 

Whom Heaven and Heaven alone can cure. 

But can this picture all be true. 

And does it not debase man's view? 

The answer must dependent be 

Upon your sense of poetry, 

'Tis plain the sacred bards designed 

To paint man's lost and ruined mind; 

And then a restoration great. 

From lowest depths to highest state. 

To please poetic fancy true 

In such a wide contrasting view. 

As when the joyous spring 
Succeeds a cold and wintry death. 

The dumb begin to sing, 
Where nature breathes life giving breath. 



158 VIA SACRA 

E'n such the sacred song shall be, 
The lost is found, the blind now see. 
Gates are unbarred, the prisoners free; 
The captive breaks like thread his chain, 
The prodigal returns again; 
Angelic hosts with holy mirth, 
Re sponsive sing to choirs on earth ; 
They sing of rescue from the shame. 
Of ruined life and ruined name. 

Not so the view to us unfurled 

By all the gloomy heathen world 

Where the dark scene that's pictured there 

Is darker still with man's despair. 

Sad is the song of Earth's dark host 

When faith is dead and hope is lost, 

There's one, Mantua's poet sage, 

Sings not the sadness of his age. 

But standing on the mountain peaks 

Where inspiration soulful speaks, 

Where prophecy is in the air, 

He breathes the spirit that is there; 

Sings with the seer of sacred Iky^e 

The song of hope, the song divine. 

Where peace shall reign triumphant o'er 

A world where men learn war no more. 

Where swords and shields and hurtling spears 

Are beaten into plows and shears. 

And thorns and briars sterile reign 

Gives place to pines and fields of grain. 



VIA SACRA 159 

Two pictures then address your eye, 
One from below, one from on high; 
One is disease by gauze concealed, 
The more to knowing eyes revealed; 
The other is disease laid bare. 
But in the Great Physician's care. 
One of a vessel tempest tossed. 
On breakers fierce, where all are lost ; 
Another makes a wreck appear 
But with a life-boat hov'ring near; 
Choose you the scene darksome, forlorn, 
Or that of hope and life and morn. 
Choose you yespair, sin, shame, distress. 
Or choose you life, hope, holiness. 

Thus have I writ: here will I pause; 

Nor once explore that desert land 

Where controversy's blasts overwhelm 

With words like drifting sand. 

And only barren forms you see. 

The realm of venomed bigotry : 

An Arizona's drear plateau 

Where sun beams scorch and sand storms blow 

And naught doth meet the weary eye 

Save cactus sharp where serpents lie ; 

I leave this realm to those who choose 

The desolate, the parched, the chill, 

And guided by a kindlier muse, 

I ask: What is the Heavenly will? 

'Tis this, and 'tis above all strife. 

Religion is a mode of life, 



l60 VIA SACRA 

A life begun in faith, hope, love, 

And leading on to Heaven above; 

Superior to all distress. 

Through God grown strong in feebleness; 

Content, active, alert and pure 

In palace great or hut obscure ; 

A life with some alloy of hate 

Nor all negation nor debate, 

Abhorring evil yet the more 
To seek the good, the good adore. 
Alas! what feuds, what deadly strife. 
O'er forms, but not o'er modes of life; 
Crude forms that guide the childish mind 
.Which man, full grown, should leave behind; 
Child gardens for the children all 
To men ridiculously small. 

What realms have felt the crushing tread 
Of bigots armed! Behold the dead 
Unburied lie! The once gay street 
Is still or throbs with hostile feet. 
The night once vocal with high glee. 
Now echoes to the minstreky 
Of wolves and dogs — Both hut and hall 
And field and garden, ruined all, 
Are waste and tenantless save that 
The owl the viper and the bat 
Contented reign as they survey 
A wilderness of foul decay. 



VIA SACRA l6l 

Mad alienations still divide 

The Christian world, to crush or hide 

Or weaken all; man's forces rent 

By blind ambitions mad intent 

Still the dogmatic fool declares; 

O! if the world would say my prayers 

And creed and wear my cut off dress 

'Twould bring the world all happiness. 

'Tis false! Your forms and words profuse 

Are but a cloak for vice to use; 

Yea, more; a pestilential fen 

Whence come the deadliest foes of men. 

Strive not for forms or name or clan 

But let your only strife be this : 
Who, who shall be the better man 
And who possess the nobler bliss. 
Be not content to drain your heart 
Of wrong, but fill its every part 
With beauteous things, the good and true, 
While hands find worthy deeds to do. 
'Tis not enough the marsh to drain 
But plant its fertile soil with grain. 
In old Selene's swamp by day 
A horrid dragon hidden lay; 
At night he viewless came and still 
To frighten all, many to kill. 
But fortunate there came a Knight 
Who seized and dragged him to the light, 
Bridled the monster with a thong 
And led him through the streets along 
And in the sight of all he slew 



1 62 VIA SACRA 

The fiend. But what next did he do? 
Would a brave Knight contented be 
A pestilential fen to see 
Where other monsters like the first 
Would rise again with deeds as curst ? 
Not so. The reeking swamp he drained, 
Made gardens fair, where shades detained 
The guest, while flowers and fruitage there 
Regaled with taste or fragrance rare. 
Such be thy life. The bad expel 
By planting good and doing well 
Then thou wilt have no empty soul 
Where evil soon would gain control; 
No rich neglected soil where spring 
Rank weeds and every noxious thing. 
In your own life let men behold 
A beauteous garden's fruits of gold; 
All things that please the taste and eye 
The world to ble&s and beautify. 



TO MAE 163 



TO MAE 

Yes, I was angry when 
Those words I wrote; 

With an impetuous hand 
I scrawled a note; 

Alas! that lurid rage 

Should stain the blameless page. 

And every hurried word 

Writ in the light 
Of anger's smoking torch 

rd blot from sight 
If tears could wash away 
Mistakes of yesterday. 

Since tears have washed my eyes 

1 clearly see, 
For now you seem indeed 

More dear to me, 
And if I've wronged you sore 
I prize you only more. 

A hard and bitter strife 

I've battled through life: 

I must o'erlook some wrong, 
And so must you; 



164 TO MAE 

We are in practice sure 
To pardon or endure. 

O ! let us welcome back 

The rosy hours, 
Then will I strew your way 

With thornless flowers; 
And with you hand in hand 
Make earth a fairy land. 



MT. SAN ANTONIO 1 65 



* MT. SAN ANTONIO 

Thou Monarch old, should misty seas en- 
shroud 
Thy breast, thou lookest down on realms of 

cloud 
That at thy word a rainy tribute pay : 
The hills rejoice, the rivers madly play. 
At thy command the clouds withdraw, and lo ! 
Thou boldest aloft the treasures of the snow, 
The sacred source whence fertile rivers flow. 
The dwellers in the vale when hot winds burn 
To thee as to a god enthroned will turn 
As they thy swift and fruitful streams behold 
More rich than river sands of yellow gold. 
And thou wast born midst wars of primal 
fire 
When earth was wrinkled with contortions 

dire. 
And mighty strife arose twixt sea and land 
To know who should obey and who com- 
mand. 
Imprisoned Fire, o'er whom the sea had 

reigned 
And held deep down below in bondage 
chained, 



* A mountain in Southern California. 



1 66 MT. SAN ANTONIO 

Aweary grew and with the hills submerged 
A compact made and bold rebellion urged. 

Then Fire said : What valiant hill w'l 11 lead 
Our forces on? Who'll be the first to heed 
With action bold, the signal for the fray 
That hurls the ocean back and ends his sway? 

The signal given, San Antonio 
Rose first and with resounding overthrow 
He shook a world of water from his side 
That round the earth swept with tumultuous 

tide. 
Alarming Ocean deep in all his caves 
And brought in line a thousand leagues of 

waves 
That with augmenting force turn back to 

throw 
Their world of rage 'gainst San Antonio. 

The rising mountains stagger at the shock, 
But Fire, alert and fierce, hurls liquid rock 
Along the thundering line of war. Hot spray 
Tremendous screams and toward the moon 

away 
Shoots far, bedecked with lightning lurid 

tide, 
That wider grew, till passing worlds espied 
And pangs of sympathy o'er cloud the sun 
And many stars. Confounded meteors run 
As quails by crakling smoke confused will fly 
Swift through the flames on burning wing to 

die. 



MT. SAN ANTONIO 1 67 

E'n SO, dire meteors smite the air around 
And flashing fall with loudest thunder sound. 
Still, thou brave San Antonio, didst higher 
Rise, and reinforced by scorching troops of 

fire 
Hurlst back mad Ocean to his own domain 
And still dost thou thy victory maintain, 
While Ocean ever and anon recalls 
His old defeat and 'gainst his prison walls 
Beats loud with clamor hoarse, but thou 

meanwhile 
Secure on adamantine throne dost smile. 



1 68 A RETROSPECT 



A RETROSPECT 

Ye that with retrospective eye 

Behold our nation's birth, 
Then see how ancient realms were born 

No doubt are moved with mirth 

As you have idly listened while 

The mystic minstrels lay 
Did mingle imps and demigods 

With very common clay, 

And how the legend they translate 

To upper worlds afar, 
To warble in the Heavenly spheres 

Or twinkle in a star. 

But those who built the western world 

And her foundations laid 
Wrought not with demigods, but God, 

And with Almighty aid. 

'Twas no inferior deities 

Divide their toils or fame ; 
Not twinkling stars, but suns and worlds 

Their deeds and worth proclaim. 



A RETROSPECT 1 69 

But some, alas! were sordid men, 

With greed insanely blind 
And taxed the powers of Heaven to thwart 

The madness of their mind. 

DE SOTO 

Here would I sing his fate who first 

Beheld that stream whose flow 
Blends far Itaska with the sea 

Of genial Mexico. 

Hard through the forest and the brake, 

The fen and the morass, 
'Mid savage arrows and the brand 

De Soto's legions pass. 

And now they near a river's bank, 

A lame and battered few 
And halt a while in wild amaze 

The mighty stream to view. 

A tide so vast, so swift and deep 

Must drain a continent; 
Waked fancy now takes wings and flies 

Afar in wonderment. 

'Twere hard^ to tell what thought and hope 

The Spaniard then possessed; 
Song's theme does not accord with his 

Cold, mercenary breast. 



170 A RETROSPECT 

Verse does not choose to sing the love 

Of conquest or of gold; 
Those dark incitements that did make 

The Spaniard madly bold. 

A later day and near this spot 

De Soto, broken, died; 
His coffin was a hollow tree, 

His grave the river's tide. 

That this stream be his monument, 

His race and deeds befit; 
Here be his murky grave, and here 

His epitaph he writ. 
Deceptive, cold, remorseless stream! 

So like the Spaniard dread. 
Engulfing all and giving back 

Naught but the drifting dead. 

But hard men yet, through Heaven's hand, 

May further human weal; 
E'n as that river's dangerous tide 

Transports the prosp'rous keel. 

TH^ ERENCHMAN 

Unlike the Spaniard was the Gaul 

Who from the northern lake. 
O'er sedgy stream or prairie wide 

His way will singly take : 



A RETROSPECT 171 

Eats venison or beaver fat 

With Winnebago chief, 
And with the tawny multitude 

He smokes the fragrant leaf. 

The Calumet and not the sword 

Subdue the savage mood, 
Canoes, and not the armored fleet, 

Convoy him o'er the flood. 

Enraptured with strange lands and tribes 

And hopes of stranger still. 
Men and the elements became 

The servants of his will. 

Inspiring all was love of fame 

That gives her child a charm 
Superior to wind and wave. 

Or dread miasma's harm. 

Fame of his own he would unite 

With glory of fair France; 
O'er all these realms and tribes he saw 

Her tranquil star advance. 

And ere my muse resign this theme ; 

And sing another lay, 
She would to dauntless de la Salle 

An humble tribute pay. 



172 A RETROSPECT 

IvA SAI.I.E 

Across the ocean's wide and rough domain 

Let Fancy oftimes go and come again, 

Pursuing all the while a silent man 

Who like the gods conceals each mighty plan; 

And if what time you touch the western shore 

You follow him a thousand leagues or more, 

(For only Fancy could attend a course 

So long sustained 'gainst man's and nature's 

force) . 
This is La Salle, accursed of men and fate, 
But by the world is canonized of late. 

Mark how he walks through icy waters 

dread, 
His scant munitions held above his head; 
O'er inland seas tempestuous to glide 
Now with and now against the river's tide. 
As on he braves from north to southern plains 
By torrid heat consumed or drenching rains, 
Where plague and famine gaunt attend his 

way 
And treacherous men more cruel still than 

they. 
Forsaken oft by men, since all save he 
Were unsustained by dreams of things to be, 
He saw a nation from the desert rise 
More vast than aught had been beneath the 

skies. 
Or if to Albion or France or Spain 
Or to Columbia's new and fair domain 



A RETROSPECT 1 73 

He could not tell, but like a raptured seer 

He saw a realm magnificent appear, 

And sought for France and Louis' fading 

crown 
This gem of untold brilliance and renown. 

Too great and too far reaching his designs 
To lie within the grasp of common minds, 
And so he moved austere and occupied 
And lived alone; alone he fell and died; 
And if through life black harpies him pursue. 
His corse unburied was the vulture's due. 

But what is monument or sepulture 
If but the fame of his designs endure? 
Defeated by the perfidy of man 
The world concedes the greatness of his plan 
And reverences de la Salle the same 
As if his dreamed of empire bore his name. 

THE SAXON 

Five mighty nations blend to form 

The fabric of the West, 
But the imperial Saxon leads 

And fashions all the rest. 

And every tribe and every tongue diverse 

Whom our wide shores protect 
Soon learn the Saxon's honest speech. 

The freeman's dialect. 



174 A RETROSPECT 

And freedom's notes from e^ery land 

Here blend in unison, 
As many dreams and hopes unite 

In one name — Washington. 

O! Saxon! thou hast struck a song 

From rocks of history, 
And writ an epic on the world 

Surpassing poesy. 

Thy works, inventions, freedom, arts. 

And globe-encircling store 
Surpass the golden prophesies 

Of Plato and of More. 

And consummation outruns hope, 

Mankind has won the race 
Since the new Saxon of the West 

Sprang forth and set the pace. 



THE STORY OF THE OAK 1 75 



THE STORY OF THE OAK 

As through an ancient wood I pai\sed, 

Upon a summer day, 
I heard the trees sing in the breeze, 

I saw them toss and sway. 

A rugged oak was standing near. 

The largest of them all, 
There was no tree so large as he. 

Though some were quite as tall. 

And he had lived full many years 
And many sights had seen 

While looking down on winter's brown, 
Or summer's joyous green. 

How old are you, old Oak? I said; 

Tell me your history! 
And right away, without delay. 

He whispered down to me: 

I am three hundred years of age. 

As near as I can tell, 
And I can state that I of late 

Am feeling very well. 



176 THE STORY OF THE OAK 

All through so many winters cold 

In slumber am I bound, 
The winter quite seems short and light 

Because I sleep so sound. 

The touch of spring wakes me from sleep 

And I begin to grow 
Both stout and tall nor rest at all 

Till autumn's breezes blow. 

Two hundred years ago I had 

A pain within my chest; 
And I must say for many a day 

My health was none the best. 

And this is how it came about: 

Some tribes of wild red men 
Were fighting near, with club and spear — 

I was a sapling then. 

And while they dodged and sulked around 

There was an Indian lad 
Through war's alarms hid in my arms; 

To shield him I was glad. 

And while he nestled like a bird 

There was a shaft went wild, 
The poison dart struck near my heart 

And so I saved the child. 



THE STORY OF THE OAK 1 77 

And every May about this time 

Sharp pains would me annoy; 
I did not care such pain to bear, 

For I had saved the boy. 

Long time I suffered much because 

The wound was slow to heal, 
But when each year the lad came near 

Less pain I seemed to feel. 

For every spring time he would come, 

When sings the forest lark, 
And silent stand with folded hand 

And lean against my bark. 

I saw that Indian lad grow up 

To be a rugged man; 
And brave was he as man could be 

Of any race or clan. 

One summer day he brought his squaw 

And her pappose so red. 
Then standing nigh and pointing high, 

With solemn voice he said : 

"Here did we kill those dogs — the Sioux — 

Upon that battle day; 
There is the tree that sheltered me ; 

This is enough to say.'' 



178 THE STORY OF THE OAK 

Thus every spring sure as the sun 

That chieftain kind and bold 
Would visit me, his friendly tree, 

Till he was growing old. 

Then years passed by and I no more 

Saw that brave Indian's face. 
For white men came with sword and flame 

And drove away his race. 

Full record of his words and deeds 

I never could supply, 
But this I name, that here he came 

To chant his dirge and die. 

Far through the white man's realm he came. 

His mission all unknown; 
For none but I could tell you why 

He came so far alone. 

At last I saw him coming near 

With slow and feeble tread. 
And with a groan and trembling moan 

These are the words he said: 

"I've come to see my friend and die. 

My visits now are o'er; 
My race is run, my setting sun 

Will rise again no more. 



THE STORY OF THE OAK 1 79 

I cannot speak in counsel now, 

Nor kill the coward foe, 
Nor hurl the spear nor snare the deer, 

Nor hunt the buffalo. 

I am a dead and fallen tree — 

And then he bowed his head : 
There was a pause; I saw the cause — 

The warrior chief was dead. 

Then white men came with solemn air 

And carried him away. 
So ends the chief, it brings me grief, 

I'll speak no more today. 

Thus did the Oak his story tell, 

Just as I now tell you. 
It made me sad, it made me glad! 

I wonder if its true? 



l8o TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE 



TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE 

Some full-rigged vessels sail 

Like bubbles, light and free; 
Like bubbles, too, they burst 

And melt into the sea. 
Awhile they dance along the main 
And ports of wealth and ease they gain, 
And then cajoled by fortune they 
Sport fortune's golden chance away. 
Such ships have wings and nothing more, 
E'n like the gulls along the shore, 
Yet many rustics of the land 

And lubbers of the street 
Will shout aloud: behold the grand, 

The noblest of the fleet ! 
There goes the ship for me. Her name 
Shall shine upon the scroll of Fame ; 
And then they climb the lofty shore 
To cheer her on and see her more. 
While gentle hands salute the brave, 
The pride and master of the wave. 

Alas! Deceived are they so to 
Salute a false and empty show 
That will soon melt like April snow. 

II 

Now let your fancy's vision mark 
Far on the sea a bounding bark 



TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE l8l 

Where scarce a gull would venture bold, 
But whistling gale 
In shroud and sail 
Is heard. The surging sea proclaims 
No welcome to the kindling eye 

And there is here no land, 

Nor cliff, nor tower, nor strand 
To lift the shouting crowds on high; 

But, O! within that vessel's hold 

Are merchandise and gems and gold : 
Ceylon and Araby, the blest, 

Luzon, the opulent. 

Around whose isles are blent 
The farthest east and farthest west, 
These all pay tribute to that sail 
That bends before the favoring gale 
To scatter gear from zone to zone. 
Unheralded, unsung, unknown. 
How like these ships some mortals be! 

One flaunts much canvas in the air. 
But close along the shore sails he, 

To watch if gazing crowds be there. 
And listens for the cheer of those 
Whose eyes in pageants find repose, 
Who cheer a full-rigged bark, nor care 
To ask if any worth she bear. 
And there are men who heed 

No plaudits of the throng. 
But bravely onward speed, 

Uncheered by lauding song, 



1 82 TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE 

On voyage far, severe and lone, 
Mid Arctic ice or torrid zone. 
'Tis he who in the stubborn soil, 
Or mine or shop or school may toil; 
Who gains no public place 

Of famed emolument, 
But in his sphere displays 

Brave manhood and content, 
Who loves his kindred and his cot, 
Though delegations meet him not, 
Nor shouts of multitudes resound. 
Nor plumed cohorts shake the ground. 
And yet he sits upon a throne 
And is the monarch of his own, 
And sees an empire round him grow 
And wider still his power flow. 
As real as the fevered hour 
When realms the brow shall wreathe. 

When Senates 'wildered by man*s power 
Adjourn that they may breathe. 
As when of old the rights of man 
Were voiced by mighty Sheridan. 

A tablet in God's Hall of Fame 
Hath every man with worthy name. 



TWO BROOKS 183 

TWO BROOKS 

FIRST BROOK 

Beside a shaded glen, 

On a plateau, 
There ran a crystal brook 

In peaceful flow. 
Reflecting earth and sky 

So calm and clear; 
And youths more beauteous seemed 

When imaged there, 
As by the brook they came 
And sang its pleasing name. 

And as it heard men speak 

Its glowing praise. 
It paused in calm content 

And there it stays, 
And soon its face reflects 

No sky serene. 
For o'er the* brook there falls 

A mantle green; 
Thy fate is only worse. 
Once blest, but now a curse. 

You once made men laugh, now 
You make men sigh 



^^4 TWO BROOKS 

O'er pestilential swarms 

That from thee fly: 
Insects that hum and sting, 

Miasma's breath, 
Thou insalubrious thing. 

In league with death. 
The eyes you once made bright 
Are lustreless as night. 

All round the valley side 

Thou hast a train 
Of fever, plague and pest, 

Anguish and pain; 
I will not sing thy name. 

But turn away : 
I will not see thy face 

In taint's array; 
Another stream I'll praise 
And sing its gladsome ways. 

SDCOND BROOK 

O! happy stream that hastes 

Unto the sea, 
And like a robin sings 

A song for me, 
Or turns the mill that grinds 

The golden grain, 
Or bathes with liquid life 

The emerald plain; 
No flowers so happy look 
As those beside the brook. 



« 



TWO BROOKS 185 

Its royal course now bears 

The brave canoe, 
And now the breathing boat 

She transports too, 
Yet onward moves; no pause 

For praise or rest 
Until it joins the gulf, 

And on its breast 
Bears ships with sails unfurled, 
The commerce of a world. 

But is the brook entombed 

Within the sea? 
No so. The sun god's kiss 

Right royally 
Exalts it to the sky 

And o'er my head 
On white winged clouds from south 

The brook has sped — 
The rainbows pearly track 
Tells where the brook came back. 

Then on its southern course 

It speeds again, 
From mount and valley to 

The far-off main, 
'Tis glad in making glad 

All it goes by, 
Until the sun god lift 

It to the sky; 
Such be your life and mine 
On earth, or realms d\vine. 



1 86 THE CAVE OF MELANCHOLY 



THE CAVE OF MELANCHOLY 

There is a pestilential cave, 

Darksome and chill, 
And here mad Melancholy reigns, 

And he doth fill 
The minds of all his votaries 
With partial truths, the Devil's lies. 

He and his dejected train are 

Never jolly; 
The first law of their dominion is 

Melancholy ; 
And if a laugh should echo there, 
'Tis the mad laughter of despair. 

He lures with solemn arguments 

Bewildered men, 
And leads them far from light of day 

Into his den, 
And many stately shapes has he 
And simulates e'n sanctity. 

He holds before the eyes such scenes 

Of midnight hue. 
That all the chambers of the soul 

Are tinct with blue, 
And then with gloom infatuate, 
They love the world of gloom and hate. 



THE CAVE OF MEI.ANCHOLY 1 87 

Then forth toward his cave he leads 

His slaves away 
And there they sit them down to hear 

The mournful lay 
Of groans and deep suspiring breath, 
And look on scenes of woe and death. 

For on the walls are pictures drawn 

In leaden hue. 
Of men aslide down crags to hell, 

And these they view 
With smoking lamps that throw a light 
More grewsome than the blackest night. 

And then they move with awful step 

Where scenes are writ 
In desolation wide, profound, 

Such as befit 
A wreck mid Arctic ice and air, 
Where hope dies grappling with despair. 

Then to the portraits of disease 

And death they come ; 
Eczema, gnawing leprosy; 

Delirium 
Intense with maniacal air, 
A lazar house is pictured there. 

The portraits next of those who failed 
In high design 



1 88 THE CAVE OF MELANCHOLY 

For human weal; Rienzi bold, 

Toussaint benign, 
And all that host whose failure brought 
High hoping realms to melancholy thought. 

And a wide stage is built whereon 

They act the part 
Of virtue tried, condemned, while vice 

With subtle art 
Stalks gaily forth with honored name. 
Exulting loud in Virtue's shame. 

Then Melancholy high enthroned 

Doth loud express 
His mind: My friends, you here behold 

The world's true dress: 
No gloss deceives, no thin veneer. 
The world laid barp is pictured here. 

The lying world where you have been 

Is tricked with paint; 
And vice and falsehood there parade 

In mask of saint: 
Its light is phosphor or decay; 
The real world you here survey. 

He said and when applause had ceased 

They all partook, 
At separate boards a solemn feast. 

There was no look 



THE CAVE OF MELANCHOLY 1 89 

Or word of joy; then they resume 
Each one his chosen path of gloom. 



Ye melancholy slaves, fly this 

Accursed spot: 
The cheerful world above whence you 

Have fled is not 
So false as this noisome distress, 
For gloom's more false than joyousness. 

Should Melancholy seek again 

To lead astray, 
Turn ye and face the wretch, and cry: 

Thou fiend, away! 
The truth of joy I'll choose to see ; 
The truth of gloom I'll spurn from me. 



190 DOCTOR TIMELY 



- DOCTOR TIMELY 

The Doctor's practice lucrative and large 
Made Time his friend and life a pleasing 

charge, 
And oft he felt a generous thrill of zest 
As many great and small to him confessed 
The boundless debt they ever owed to him 
For giving health or saving life or limb. 



II 



To please his broad and sympathetic mind 
He would bestow a blesing on mankind 
By searching out some powder, drop or pill 
To be a panacea for each ill 
That man is subject to ; and though he'd gain 
Sure immortality and banish pain. 
Could he but see the world in rosy health 
'Twould be sufficient fame, sufficient wealth. 



Ill 



In harmony with this supreme intent 
He took much time to make experiment, 
And soon at night declined to make a call, 
Next stubbornly refused to go at all: 



DOCTOR TIMELY 191 

And SO his friends grew strange, his patrons 

fled; 
The Doctor is stark mad, the people said, 
For see his staggering gait, his face is pale, 
His voice once chegry as the nightingale 
Is rasping as an eastern wind ; he sees 
Alas ! his castles fall before the breeze. 
He finds his various remedies had been 
Tried oft, in vain, before by sons of men. 
And his elixirs, panaceas sure. 
Have no effect, or kill as oft as cure; 
But still the fable of the spider's toil 
He skept in mind, and burned the midnight 

oil. 
iVnd oft to Heavenly powers he muttering 

prayed 
And claimed that plans so good should have 

their aid. 



IV 



A midnight storm raged round. The Doctor 

lone 
Bent o'er a corse: laid bare each nerve and 

bone ; 
Marked what the reeking viscera display 
With eye as searching as a cathode ray — 
But quick he lifts his head and bends his ear, 
A plain yet mystic spirit voice to hear. 



192 DOCTOR TIMELY 

SPIRIT : 

O! wretched man, thus to forsake 
The living for the dead! 
Were justice now to strike — 

DOCTOR : 

— Beware ! 

SPIRIT : 

In vain you cry "Beware!" But why 
Need I to waste a word or curse 
On a departed thing like thee. 
You once did live, but you are dead. 
The eagle does not touch a corse, 
And hence I leave you to foul birds 
And worms. I go 

DOCTOR : 

A moment, stay — 

SPIRIT : 

Speak on. The time is short — 

DOCTOR : 

Thou art 
A knowing sprite, but dost thou know 
The mighty aim that chains my soul 
And keeps me thus a slave to toil? 



DOCTOR TIMELY 1 93 



SPIRIT : 



I know your purpose well. Have I 
Not seen your midnight watch and toil 
And heard you call on powers divine? 
And now I come to answer you — 
You go too far in quest of things 
If in your ardor you forsake 
The sick who call to you for aid. 
You cannot pluck the highest fruit 
Save when you are uplifted by 
The grateful ones that you have blessed. 

And if you seek a remedy 
For all the sickness of the world, 
You need to go far far beyond 
The realm of golden mortars mixed 
With lion hands : And should you call 
The aid of hypnotists and those 
Called Holy Healers who deceive 
The chronic multitude awhile, 
You yet could find no remedy. 
And if 'twere found, 'twould be a curse. 
Now, as I go, I say "Beware!" 

DOCTOR : 

'Tis strange to hear these midnight spirits ! 
My mind, once certain as the star 
That guides on every northern sea. 
Is growing wild; mine ears, once tuned 
To notes of social harmony, 
Now catch the hollow dialect 



194 DOCTOR TIMELY 

Of Spirit goblins erratic; 

My tongue that once communed with men 

Beneath the honest noonday sun 

Now jabbers in a dark seance, 

The wierd vernacular of Hell. 

O ! by my locks now white, but not 
With time, and by these withered hands 
Now tremulous, but not with age, 
And by the holy essence of 
All space and time, that can create 
New worlds and recreate the old 
I yet shall know the meaning of 
This visit preternatural. 

He said, then fell and lay twixt sleep and 
death 
Where life's frail tenure is a noiseless breath, 
But even here remains a conquering power 
That gives life victory within an hour. 



IV 



Above the clamor of the storm, a knock 
Was heard that waked the Doctor as the 

shock 
Of thunder near that rends the flinty rock. 
Then madly bounding to his feet, cries he : 
Who comes at such an hour to summons 

me? 
Aha ! you answer not ! It is the hail ; 



DOCTOR TiMEIvY 1 95 

Perchance some goblin of the stormy gale, 
And yet a human spirit doth pervade 
The room, and strikes me with an airy blade. 
Then cautiously he moves along the floor, 
And noiselessly and slow unlocks the door, 
And there beheld a' dying prostrate form, 
A victim of calamity and storm. 
With all the will and strength he could com- 
mand 
He raised the groaning wretch with gentle 

hand 
And drew him in and gave him skillful care. 
His life and all his senses to repair, 
And as the dying man 'gan to revive 
The Doctor, too, began anew to live. 
He felt the joy of ministering to man 
And once again his practice he began. 
Again he proved in treatrrtent of disease 
A worthy son of old Hippocrates. 
His former friends and new ones by the score 
With urgent calls besiege his open door: 
Again he cooly takes his handsome fees 
And from enslaving debts his fortune frees. 



VI 



Afar among the hills where boughs droop low 
There is the sacred source whence rivers flow : 
Perchance there is a spring that pours a tide 
That by a deity is purified. 



196 DOCTOR TIMELY 

For here there is a vast and hidden cave, 
With sparkling walls and floor washed by the 

wave. 
Here pure white lamps a radiance diffuse 
And gem the crystal dome with rainbow hues; 
Millions of sparkling stones are studded there, 
The diamond and every gem that's rare. 

Hygeia here presides: she that is dear 
To bright Appollo and imparts the cheer 
Of rosy health. She and her train oft come 
Through mazy labyrinths beneath this dome. 

Hygeia takes a reed and plays a part; 
Appollo sweeps the lyre with god-like art. 
The dome with multitudinous refrain 
Sends back the sound like showers of summer 

rain; 
The waters by the sound are purified 
And from the cave in sparkling currents 

glide : 
Immaculate in touch they cleanse and heal 
The body and dispel the woes men feel, 
Ere yet the stream becomes tideless and vile 
Or murky confluents its course defile, 
So by this law the Doctor shaped his plan 
That prime and unmixed truth is best for man 
Ere yet the taint of base and erring mind 
Or envy, faction, lust, ambition blind. 
Pollute the stream along its winding way 
With elements of death or foul decay. 

The Doctor said : Diseases have their use 
In warning men, and punishing abuse; 



DOCTOR TIMELY 1 97 

But lest the race from earth be swept away 
And fell despair should hasten man's decay- 
Earth, air, and sea, humanity and skill 
Relieve while not destroying human ill. 
Should perfect skill the healing art attain, 
Disease in threatening form must still remain, 
So long as dupes to Mecca's shrine repair 
And swarming myriads breathe polluted air, 
So long as men to shun the scourge's wrath 
Court superstition rather than the bath. 
So long as appetite descends to greed. 
Transforming men to worse than beasts that 

feed; 
And passion's fire burns into ashen lust 
And brands upon the countenance disgust; 
While misers hoard for profligate's to waste, 
Some drowned in sweets, and some denied a 

taste ; 
Congestion reigning here, depletion there. 
One to inflame, one chilling with despair; 
So long as some are laggards on the course 
And others bound ahead with rapid force. 
While governments unequal burdens lay. 
And grind the poor the nation's debts to pay, 
And politicians in great pledges vie 
And in fulfillment prove how they can lie; 
And with the able-bodied profligate 
Conspire to rob the treasury of state; 
While men, the froth of vulgar praise to gain. 
Right principle dethrone and false maintain, 



1 98 DOCTOR TIMEI.Y 

While rites and creeds can riot in excess 
And unrebuked parade as righteousness; 
So long, indeed, as earth is cursed with vice. 
So long diseases will the race chastise. 

See then how wide, how arduous the plan 
That would eradicate disease from man. 
No lymph can sterilize the source of pain, 
Nor simples gathered from the land or main; 
And so to lessen man's severest ills 
The Doctor uses powders, drops and pills, 
Imagination, laughter's hale grimace. 
Suggestion — anything that suits the case; 
And some he heals by touching with his 

hands, 
As mid the waiting multitude he stands ; 
This one he sends to ocean's tonic shore. 
That one must climb the rugged mountains 

o'er; 
The losel and epicure must haste 
Away and wander in some desert waste, 
To drink the effervescent streams that glide 
Hot from the crucible of God ; a tide 
Remote, with healthful labor gained and 

tried. 
To this he says: Refrain from strenuous toil, 
To that go dig the aromatic soil : 
To all he says : Spurn vice and dirt and wrong 
And by obedience to right grow strong. 

The Doctor now consumes no hours to find 
A single cure for ills of all mankind, 



DOCTOR TIMELY I 99 

But in his daily rounds he is content 
Some ills to mitigate and some prevent; 
Adapts his remedies to each and all. 
The sick his care, the world his hospital, 
Mankind his aim, beneficence his rule. 
The earth his book, the universe his school. 



200 ARION 



ARION 

There was a king with vast estate 

In houses, lands and gold, 
With servants, scribes and hangers on, 

Too many to be told. 

To men he said : Go bring bright pearls 
From out the caverned sea; 

Go search the earth for treasures rare 
And bring them all to me; 

And it was done quick as a dream, 

For e'n his wish was law supreme. 

Arion, his musician, loved 

The King's fair daughter Prue, 
And then the King resolved to crush 

And kill Arion, too; 
And said : Arion, go and bring 

A prima donna fair, 
Whom prima donnas all shall choose 

As best beyond compare; 
Let singers choose for my own stage 
The finest tenor of the age; 
Bring instruments of dulcet din. 
The zither, banjo, mandolin, 
Guitar and flute of soothing tone, 
The picolo and xylophone. 



ARION 20 1 

This varied aggregation I 
Command you bring or else you die. 

Arion went, but only threw 

The fair ones in a rage; 
Each prima donna thought herself 

The greatest on the stage. 

And he was grieved alike to find 
The tenors of a jealous mind : 
They could not all agree that one 
Should be preeminent alone. 

Arion hung his head in woe, 
And while he pondered what to do 
A dark magician to him came. 
With curious box, with alien name. 
Here take this little box from me, 

The sly magician said; 
'Twill please his majesty the King 

And save Arion's head. 
Right glad he went : then said the King : 
Sir, did I not command you bring 
Earth's only prima donna here, 

The world's first tenor, too. 
And every instrument that's made 

With soothing sounds to woo 
Repose or drive all gloom away? 
Produce them or you die today. 
Wait ! Wait ! O, King ! Arion cried ; 
Within this magic box reside 



202 ARION 

High tenors, prima donnas too, 
And instruments that rouse or woo. 

O ! King ! but name your royal choice 
Of instrument or speech or voice. 
'Twas done : In clear, sonorous tones 

Of music, wit or sense, 
The King hears the great graphophone's 

Magnetic eloquence. 

The King delighted and amazed, 
With joy, surprise and rapture crazed, 
Cried out: My daughter you may woo, 
Take her and take my blessing too! 



JU 



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18U1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRFQq 

016 211 494 3 V , 




